Ricardo Montalban RIP

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7829807.stm

pwned. :(

nooooooo! :-(

RIP

RIP retardo montalban

from imdb:

"In 1993, he had a 9 1/2 hour surgical operation on his spine to repair an old back injury he received while filming Across the Wide Missouri (1951). He has been in constant pain ever since and confined to a wheelchair as a paraplegic."

Well that does suck. Death was probably something of a relief.

Everyone owes it to themselves to watch Mystery Street - a tremendous John Sturges noir from 1950 with unbelievably handsome Montalban as the lead.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/6/6c/Mystery_Street.JPG/200px-Mystery_Street.JPG

Once again, Kirk outlives Khan. There is no God.

Didn't Kirk meet God in Star Trek V?

turned out god liked star wars :(

God was wrong

I've still never seen any of his film performances before 1964 (Ford's Cheyenne Autumn), ie the MGM Latino hunk years. I have reserved Border Incident and Battleground at the library.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/15/arts/15montalban.html

In 1971, troubled by the way he was asked to portray Mexicans, he helped to found Nosotros, an advocacy group for Latinos working in the movie and television industry. As president of the organization, he later said: “I put my career aside and dedicated my heart and soul for over a year and a half to this new organization, going to radio and television to talk about it, talking to directors, producers, writers. I received tremendous support, but there were also some negative repercussions. I was accused of being a militant and as a result I lost jobs.”

All the obits stinting on this role:

"I did it because I like chimpanzees... I did it because I hate those who try to alter destiny, which is the unalterable will of God. And if it is man's destiny to one day be dominated, then oh, please God, let him be dominated by one such as you."

Border Incident is pretty good.

God was wrong
That's supposed to go on the James Mason thread.

cute anecdote:

http://www.newsfromme.com/archives/2009_01_14.html#016521

I rewatched Wrath of Khan last night (as one does) with Nick Meyer's commentary track and his stories about working with Montalban -- as he put it, a nearly wet-behind-the-ears director vs. someone who had already done what he had over the many years -- were good fun. There was a part where Meyer felt in the first scenes shot that Montalban was too over-the-top to start with, and suggested playing it cool at the beginning -- which Montalban loved as an idea, adding, "That's why I need a director!"

Pauline Kael in her Wrath of Khan review:

"Montalban, who was born in Mexico in 1920, is one of those potentially major actors who never got the roles that might have made them movie stars. He appeared to have everything else -- a marvelous camera face, the physique of a trained dancer, talent, a fine voice (he could even sing), warmth, and great charm. Maybe the charm was a drawback -- it may have made him seem too likable, a lightweight (though it didn't stop Charles Boyer). In Montalban's first English-language picture, M-G-M's Fiesta, in 1947, which featured Esther Williams as a matador, he danced with Cyd Charisse. M-G-M next had him dancing with Charisse and Ann Miller in a Kathryn Grayson-Frank Sinatra film called The Kissing Bandit; it was said that the dancing was added after the executives saw the movie -- they wanted to give the customers something. He kept working -- in pictures such as On an Island with You, with Charisse and Esther Williams, and Neptune's Daughter, and Sombrero, starring Vittorio Gassman, and the low-budget My Man and I, in which he played a sexy handyman and displayed his pectorals, and Latin Lovers, in which he carted Lana Turner around in a tango. He had secondary parts in Sayonara and Hemingway's Adventures of a Young Man, and in Cheyenne Autumn, and he brought conviction to every role that anyone could bring conviction to, but, after almost twenty years in Hollywood, there he was in 1966 in The Singing Nun, with Debbie Reynolds, and, with Lana again, in Madame X. He seems to have lived a (lucrative) horror story, especially when you think of the TV commercials and his ever-ready smile on 'Fantasy Island.' It may be that Khan in 'Space Seed' was the best big role he had ever got, and that the continuation of the role in The Wrath of Khan is the only validation he has ever had of his power to command the big screen."

That review is one of my favorites of hers.

Forgot about The Singing Nun.

http://howardsternbits.com/play/570/

morbz i am <3ing on this thread boo

"Welcome to Fantasy Island", I can still hear his accent.

Hoping he knew the Lord and praying for comfort for his family.

I hope he was a believer and I pray that he understood the meaning of salvation.

An absolutely fantastic actor. RIP. The disturbingly prescient TCM* is showing a block of his film next Friday the 23rd including the best film I've ever seen him in, Border Incident @ noon CST. And for a glimpse of Hollywood's BEYOND fucked-up racial politics, check out his (Kael is right) still-sensitive performance as Nakamura in Sayonara.

As for Kael's review, any sense of Charles Boyer's lightweightedness was destroyed by 1941 with Gaslight. And Madame X is a fine film although Montalblan plays the requisite baddie there.

* Or did they change the schedule after his death?

I got home last night and TCM had him in some MGM doc

(I'm pretty sure they changed the sked)

http://www.tcm.com/movienews/index/?cid=221223

Ah ok. Thanx!

KJB, you gotta see the original British Gaslight with Anton Walbrook.

^ yes, way better!

maybe I'll bring my VHS copy to Austin :)

As for Kael's review, any sense of Charles Boyer's lightweightedness was destroyed by 1941 with Gaslight.

But she's saying that Boyer SEEMED lightweight early in his career (she's a huge "Earrings of Madame De..." fan).

Why ppl didn't realize that today's Superstar Toms shd've stayed lightweight, ya got me.

RIP Mr. Rourke

BTW, I guess Julie (Tattoo's kinda sorta sub from '78 or so) is the last of the Fantasy Island principles left.

Why ppl didn't realize that today's Superstar Toms shd've stayed lightweight, ya got me

I had no idea you were a Matthew McConaughey fan.

KJB, you gotta see the original British Gaslight with Anton Walbrook.

^ yes, way better!

I've always been ascared to see it for that very reason. I'd hate for Cukor's amazing one to get eclipsed. But bring away, Morbs.

KJB, you live in Austin?

Part of the year, yes.

“Ricardo Montalban is to improvisational acting what Mount Rushmore is to animation.” -John Cassavetes

John Cassavetes was to entertainment what Norman Mailer was to humility...

hey, Malcolm McDowell did the Ricardo role in the Fantasy Island rehash. ONE KILLED SPOCK AND THE OTHER KILLED KIRK.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/squidnews/3200285750/

went to see wrath of khan tonight and everyone burst into applause when montalban's name came up in the credits, and again when he made his entrance. it was nice.

and again when he said "it is very cold...in space."

saw him in Anthony Mann's Border Incident last night, muy guapo tho a dully virtuous federale role. The movie suffers from most of the other Mexicans being either bandito caricatures or played by obvious Anglo actors. Fine b&w shadowy look, nasty violence and good heavies (Howard da Silva and Charles McGraw).

who remembers the Spy Magazine TV special in the late-80's (hosted by a pre-sitcom Jerry Seinfeld) where they did that experiment to gauge the importance of celebrities?...to wit, a hidden camera was placed in the ceiling of an art gallery, which is teeming with patrons...from a door in the corner of the room, Ricardo Montalban enters the space...one by one, the gallery-goers crowd around him until he has the attention of the entire throng....from another door diagonally opposite the first one, a person is seen wheeling in a cart of donuts...one person makes the move from Ricardo to the donuts, and another person, until ultimately the entire group is crowded around the donut cart while Ricardo Montalban stands alone in his corner...what a sport!

Nicholas Meyer's commentary track for The Wrath of Khan is unexpectedly smart! He's an erudite man, alluding to Chekhov (the playwright not the doctor) and O'Neil, doesn't end sentences with prepositions, and does an elegant riff at the end on the perils of being remembered for your most popular work.

On Montalban: "This guy shoulda been playing King Lear and here he was on `Fantasy Island' with one hand tied behind his back, his mind a million miles away."

It's a great commentary, one of my favorites. I enjoy the moment when he talks about being nervous when asking Montalban to tone down his overall performance except for key moments. only to be surprised at how appreciative Montalban was for the direction. Good reminder of how the directing/acting dynamic can meet in the middle just so.

Ha, well, I see now I already said that upthread. One more time etc.

Unfortunately, for me RM's most memorable role involved the solemn intonation of the words "rich Corinthian leather" in describing the 1975 Chrysler Cordoba.

He was great in the Apes movies

*looks up preposition*

http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/ending-prepositions.aspx

argue with the writer, alfred, im hopeless with this stuff

prepositions are great things to end sentences with!

thanks for the tip on the commentary though, i'll check it out!

"ADMIRAL Kirk! AD-miral."

"I wish to go on... hurting you."

A marvelous interview (it hasn't been cited here before). He discusses exposition, every actor's horror; the travails of being a Mexican actor in the biz; and about making a living. "You're only an actor when you're acting. Never turn down a role unless it offends your moral principles."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUuIvPbMFjE

Now that's sharp.

whoa at mention of Gene Lockhart (big Orson Welles hater and reactionary).

I heard Teri Garr say she was told the same by Nicholson. "Teri, actors act."

born 100 years ago today