November 9, 2022 • 48 mins
The frenzy Rudolph Valentino caused in life was matched only by the pandemonium unleashed when he died at age 31. With his brooding good looks and vulnerability, he and the other "Latin Lovers" that followed redefined the leading man. Mo also recounts the triumphant and tragic story of superstar Ramon Novarro and talks with TV star Lorenzo Lamas about his father, the debonair Fernando Lamas.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
For years, I went to a psychotherapist just three doors
down from a funeral parlor. I gotta tell you, passing
by mourners on my way to therapy really put me
in the right headspace too, you know, think about what
I wanted my own life to add up to. I
highly recommend choosing a psychotherapist with an office next to
(00:23):
a funeral parlor. Now let's travel back in time nearly
a century ago to Manhattan's Upper West Side. It's a
sweltering late summer day, and we're standing in front of
the Frank E. Campbell Funeral Chapel, then located at Broadway
and sixty Street. Over the next hundred years, Campbell's will
(00:45):
serve as the funeral home for legends from Judy Garland
to Jackie Oh to the notorious b I. G. But
they won't draw the crowds seen on Tuesday August when
the sidewalks are overflowing with a crowd of some thirty
thousand warners. They've all gathered here to catch a final
(01:09):
glimpse of a fallen movie star. Arguably the first male
sex symbol of the silver screen. He was in great
physical shape, and you see those rippling muscles in his arms.
I mean, I don't know if you've ever seen the
(01:29):
videos of him doing his workout while he's wearing pretty
much just skivvy. Okay, I'll check those out. I haven't
seen those. I need to see that he was labeled
the Great Lover, or even more indelibly, the Latin Lover.
(01:49):
He would hold you in his arms if you were
a beautiful woman, and kiss you passionately and brutally. Can
somebody turn down the thermostat and here is I'm feeling hot?
No one burned up the screen like Rudolph Valentino, driving
(02:11):
women across the planet wild in a way that no
one had before him, enough to leave a permanent mark
in the world that he suddenly left behind. At the
tender age of thirty one. Along Broadway, a procession of
dark cars carries Valentino's rose covered, bronze and silver coffin
(02:33):
to the chapel. The crowd grows unruly, a scene recreated
in the film Valentino. Rain is falling, but instead of
cooling things off, the crowd explodes into a riot. The
mourners become a mob, push punching, fighting their way to
(02:56):
get into the funeral parlor. The surgeon. Crowd pushes a
line of policemen, causing the windows of the chapel to shatter.
Mounted police officers try to quell the riot, which lasts
for hours. Over a hundred are hurt. An improvised emergency
room is set up inside the funeral chapel, with the
(03:19):
doctors and nurses ministering to the many injured. The streets
are covered in debris. A young woman drenched from head
to toe ambles in her stockinged feet, weeping. I must
see him, I must see him. But how did we
get here? How did Rudolph Valentino reach such dizzy heights?
(03:43):
Why all of this howling, hysterical sorrow? And what exactly
is a Latin lover? He's a handsome Latin with an accent.
He's in the living in. Of course, there would be
many rivals for valen Tino's Latin lover Crown. I was
(04:03):
ruined by Raymond Navarrow. Raymond Navarro the movie star will
tell their stories and talk to Latin lover Scion Lorenzo
Lamas Dad was the original Latin dragon. He was the
original lothario of fame and notoriety, and his romances are legendary.
(04:24):
Did you tell me something, Fernando, you have a terrible reputation.
Do you still have a lot of fooling around to do?
And we'll tell you how the Latin Lover vanished from
Hollywood just as suddenly as he had appeared. I'm in
a night. No fine man is allowed to play a
leading role, like if we have an operation of someone
(04:46):
from CBS Sunday morning and I heart I'm Morocca and
this is mobituaries this moment dolf Valentino, Ramon Navarro and
a Tale of Two Lamas. October eighth, the Death of
(05:10):
the Latin Lover. World War One ended in and its
conclusion ushered in the beginning of the sexual Revolution. Wait
(05:32):
a minute, the sexual revolution that happened in the nineteen sixties,
didn't it well, There actually was an earlier sexual revolution
in the nineteen twenties. Out of the devastation of World
War One emerged a new American woman with a new
sense of sexual freedom, a modern woman. Women had finally
(05:54):
won the right to vote, and we're joining the workforce
in unprecedented numbers. The Great War had made American women
more aware of the world at large, and these women
were going to the movies. Approximately eighty three percent of
movie goers were women. Enter Rudolph Valentino, our first Latin
(06:14):
lover of the silver screen. Valentino was born Rodolfo Pietro
Filiberto Raphaele Googliemi on May six in the province of
Toronto in southern Italy. What was the appeal of Valentino? Well,
he was handsome, he was elegant. He was a dynamite dancer.
(06:41):
I mean, he was a professional dancer before he became
an actor. I'm talking to Emily wardis Lder, author of
Dark Lover, The Life and Death of Rudolph Valentino. Try
to ignore the noise in the background. And if you've
seen him dance on screen, he was so graceful and
(07:02):
dynamic as a performer. Emily, are you sorry? Are you
cooking there? My husband is getting ready for his lunch.
What is he What is he making? Salad? Okay? Al right?
Could he just be a little quieter with the tongs.
The Italian economy collapsed after World War One, and Rodolfo
(07:24):
emigrated alone to America, arriving at Ellis Island at the
age of eighteen. He first made his living as what
was known as a taxi dancer. He was doing that
pretty much from the time he was right off the
boat in New York. Taxi dancers worked in dance halls,
(07:45):
charging patrons a dime for a dance, a profession immortalized
by the Rogers and Hart song ten cents a dance,
and was that His primary ambition was that sort of
the end goal to be a dancer, not his empty
at all. He wanted respect, but working as a taxi
(08:05):
dancer was seen a sort of jigglo adjacent. That's not
high prestige all that you need. Come on. At twenty three,
Rodolpho headed to Hollywood and adopted the much more marquis
(08:27):
friendly name Rudolph Valentino. He played bit parts in various
B movies, often his Criminals and Low Lifes, until he
was discovered by June Mathis, one of the most successful
women in early Hollywood. She was a power in her
own right. I think most people would be surprised at
(08:48):
the power that several women had in Hollywood during the
silent film era. Women were a force in the era
of silent films. They only lost hour later, and they
did of course. Matthis was a screenwriter and producer, ultimately
being credited on more than one films, and she picked
(09:11):
him out and she gets the credit for being the
person who discovered law Valentino. Oh, if you're intrigued by
unsung powerful women in Hollywood's earliest days, check out our
season one episode Forgotten Forerunners, which features silent film trailblazer
Lois Webber. Okay, so there are no taped interviews of
June Mathis, but there's this ABC made for TV movie
(09:35):
from five called The Legend of Valentino, and it stars
the incomparable Suzanne Plachette as June Mathis. Here she is
arguing with Metro Studio executives over whether or not to
cast Valentino in her next big movie. Photographs like a foreigner.
Foreigners have to play heavies. American women won't trust them.
(09:57):
They trust American man read them, don't they? Who was
talking about marriage? I'm talking about sex, Sam. This is
nineteen twenty. It would just be through a world war.
Women are wearing one piece bathing suits, they're drinking bathtub gin,
they're dancing the black bottom. And the only thing that
hasn't changed is the screen. I mean, we are still
(10:18):
pretending it's sex was invented by Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm. Now,
why can't we be closer to reality? June Mathis had
seen Valentino dance. She knew he had it. I mean,
women aboard their restless They're tired of being protected and
American men are dull. Now, by the early nineteen twenties,
Americans had been going to the movies for more than
(10:41):
a decade, but the typical leading man of the day
was square jawed all American, unassailably moral. Think that the
swashbuckling Douglas Fairbanks, very Protestant, hair parted, white shirt suit.
We're talking menace here, We're talking a gentleman. A gentleman.
(11:05):
Was he demonstrative with women? There wasn't much heat, but
Douglas Fairbanks was certainly very exciting. Not as a lover
on screen. It was an athlete, not such a good kisser.
But for decades Italian immigrants had been smeared in newspapers
(11:25):
as gangsters, which is also the only way they showed
up in movies. The Emergency Quota Act codified this bigotry
by drastically limiting the number of people coming in from
southern and Eastern Europe, there was a special prejudice against
Italian immigrants. They were just one step above being black
(11:50):
in the eyes of filmmakers and society at large white audiences.
But June math Is envisioned an alternative. Bear in mind
this was a full century before me too. I mean,
if we're going to buy a dream, we're gonna buy
the one about the handsome farn who drags it into
his bed against our will. You'd like that. I love
(12:12):
that scene, and so would your wife. Mathis got her
way and cast Valentino in her film The Four Horsemen
of the Apocalypse, and one scene in that film came
to define Valentino for his entire career. The tango scene. Well,
(12:33):
it starts with menace, which used to be and maybe
still is, considered sexy. Early on in the Silent film,
Valentino's character Julio is drinking in a crowded, divy Argentine bar,
wearing a gaucho outfit, wide flat brimmed hat with tassels
and a chin strap, buttoned up blousy shirt. A man
(12:56):
and woman are dancing a jaunty tango. Valentino's drives up
and taps the man on the shoulder. Never removing his
lit cigarette, he asks to cut in. Valentino exchanges a
smile and wink with the saucy Senorita. The man, however, refuses.
Valentino's eyes widened with fury. He then throws the man
(13:17):
aside and beats him. Then he breaks in and grabs
the woman quite brutally, and then tangles off with her.
So there is Mannas about to knock you out if
you don't hand over the woman. And that was sexy.
Oh yes, okay, these movies have not aged well, but
(13:44):
Valentino's on screen persona was an exotic fantasy that women
of the era bought into in a big way. The
famous tango scene only lasted a total of four minutes,
but it had a seismic impact. Is this the scene
that really makes him a superstar in my opinion? Yes,
(14:05):
But the Sheik took over and became better known, and
that was a real craze. Valentino's first leading man role
came that same year in The Chic, the movie adaptation
of the steamy, hugely popular romance novel The Chic, which
(14:26):
was basically the Fifty Shades of Gray of its day.
This was the racy debut of thirty nine year old
British novelist E. M. Hull a k a Edith maud Hull.
The book inspired a chart topping hit called The Chic
of Araby. Crowds went absolutely wild for Valentino as a
love struck but brutal Arab chic who melts the heart
(14:49):
of a captive modern woman. Chic mania swept the world.
Oh and I must see the house where Rudolph Valentino lived. Oh,
I'll never forget him in the sheet. I'm that her love.
(15:11):
It also inspired a string of chic rip off movies,
and it continued to press the tension between sex and violence.
That's an element in some fantasy romance attention that Valentino
would exploit in roll after role. And yet now you
also wrote about a vulnerable, wounded quality that Valentino had.
(15:34):
He has that in life, and he has it on
the screen too. Yes, I think it's about its own
emotional availability and vulnerability. You could see it in his face.
That softer side was an essential part of his appeal.
He would kiss the back of women's hands, he would
(15:55):
bow flourishes of chivalry that American women weren't used to
seeing in American men, his courtesy, his focus, his intensity.
He would make you feel like you were the only
woman in the world while he was kissing you anyhow,
and this gets to the heart of what made Valentino
(16:17):
so different from the leading men who came before. He
put the woman front and sent her very important. The
woman is central. It's all about adoring the woman, and
women adored him right back, sneaking onto trains, hiding in
bathrooms just for a chance to get close to him.
(16:39):
One Boston headline read ten girls mob World's greatest kisser.
Women of all ages created the matinee idol is What
is Bill doing back there? Is he pounding? Veal was pounding? Uh?
Tell me the truth? Is all this talk about Valentino
(17:01):
making him jealous? No, he wants his lunch, but out
of the public eye. Rudy was unlucky in love and
bad with money. He endured two unhappy marriages and made
poor business decisions. Leapfrogging from studio to studio. Valentino burned
bridges and lost allies and friends in the process, including
(17:25):
his first champion. June Mathis newspaper soon took to mocking
the star as Vassilino because of his slicked back hair. Now,
we've talked plenty about how women reacted to Valentino. Indeed,
Valentino was a man made by women. But how did
most American men react to him with suspicion? Hey, he
(17:47):
was a foreigner. He didn't have exactly white complexion. He
had all of complexion, which made him suspect. And see
the wise girl friend mother liked him too much, so
that was a threat. Valentino knew that he was beautiful.
He dressed to thrill. He wore jewelry spats over his shoes,
(18:12):
lemon yellow gloves with his impeccably tailored suits. Think David
Bowie meets Harry Styles. Enter the infamous pink powder puff attack.
That was such a smear. That was a smear job,
but it got a lot of press, the pink powder
puff attack. They attacked his masculinity totally without basis. In July,
(18:39):
in anonymous Chicago Tribune editorial alleged that the city's new
Aragon ballroom had installed a pink powder puff vending machine
in the men's washroom, encouraging men to powder their noses.
And it's squarely blamed Valentino without saying it. The editorial
accused Valentino of being gay. Valentino challenged the anonymous author,
(19:05):
first to a duel of honor and then to a
boxing match, but before anonymous could come forward it was
too late. Complaining of terrible abdominal pains, Valentino was given
an emergency double operation for acute appendicitis and perforated gastric ulcers.
The resulting sepsis took his life. After a week that will,
(19:38):
Valentino died at twelve ten pm on Monday August. This
tribute song was written by Vernon Dolhart. Just ten days
after Valentino perished. The Guardian newspaper wrote, no monarch or
war hero ever aroused more sympathetic public interest anywhere than
(20:00):
Valentino during the illness, which ended fatally. Today, the press
was flooded with reports of fainting women and suicide attempts.
Twenty seven year old actress Peggy Scott took her life
in London by poison. Twenty year old Angelina Celestina, mother
of two, took poison and shot herself in the bowery.
(20:22):
She was rescued and briefly institutionalized. Valentino received two separate
funerals the first in New York with its riots and mayhem.
Then his body was transported cross country via railroad to California.
At several stops, love struck fans lay down on the tracks,
delaying the trains progress to Valentino's final resting place in Hollywood. Well,
(20:50):
nobody in this country had seen anything like it since
the death of Abraham Lincoln, though that is really something else,
you know, when Lincoln does, his body was carried in
a famous train ride, and people gathered along the tracks
in morning and tribute. And the same thing happened when
(21:13):
Valentino died. The more sensationalized reactions to Valentino's to death
became part of the national consciousness for decades afterwards, as
evidenced by this brief side in Billy Wilder's comedy Some
Like It Hot. How about Roseberry Short She slashed the
wrist when Valentino, Well, we might as well all slash
our risk unless we round up two games. Valentino is
(21:38):
buried next to June Mathis, who, out of compassion, allowed
Valentino to be entuned in her crypt at Hollywood Forever Cemetery.
His estate couldn't afford to bury him there. They rest
side by side Valentine, but way up, there's on you story.
(22:13):
Within three years of his death, silent movies were officially finished.
Would Valentino have made it in talkies, Well, here's a
rare recording of him singing let's have a quick listen
and wonder what might have been. But it was the
(22:43):
singing voice of our next Latin lover which would allow
him to make the jump to talkies. Night. Ramon name
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Samaniego Jose Ramon Hill Samaniego was born on February six Inturango, Mexico.
His large family was wealthy and influential and lost everything
in the Mexican Revolution. Seventeen year old Jose Ramon moved
to Los Angeles, where he supported his family by working
(23:35):
as a bus boy, a nude model, and a movie extra.
He dreamed of singing opera, and, just as Valentino had,
Samanego simplified his name to Ramon Navarro, although it was
much more frequently pronounced Ramon Navarro. Superstardom came with the
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silent version of Ben Her. Now, this was thirty four
years before Charlton Heston's Panavision extravaganza Ben Her, I Tell
You the day room falls, there will be a shout
of freedom such as the world has never heard before.
But the earlier version was just as epic, the most
(24:16):
expensive movie of its time, and it was written by
none other than June Mathis. Mathis desperately wanted Valentino for
the title role, but Valentino was at the time on
the ounce with the studio. Navarro got the lead. The
world had a new Latin lover, the first Mexican actor
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to make it in Hollywood. Navarro could dance, and he
could act. He was funny, and this was key to
his success in talkies. He could sing, I should like
to hear you sing. That's easy. I think I looked
anywhere without any good. Here he is singing the pagan
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love song from the nine Polynesian romance The Pagan Nice.
And here he is as a romantic and reckless Napoleonic
French officer in Devil May Care. And here he is
(25:32):
crooning alongside fledgling movie soprano and future star Jeanette McDonald
in n GM's The Cat and the Fiddle. Okay, so
maybe that pigeon like warbling is not to our current tastes,
(25:54):
But save your bread crumbs. Navarro's operetta style of singing
was all the rage at the time. I'm Navarro had
only one accent for all of his speaking roles. Whether
he was playing an Egyptian, Belgian or Austrian, he always
spoke with his natural, lilting Mexican accent. Here he is
as a Russian. Just go with it, wooing the world
(26:16):
weary Swedish screen siren Greta Garbo in Mata Hari's a
strange boy who loves you, William, I love you as
when a door's sacred things. Let's sink of things. God, country,
honor you now. Navarro was not the sex god that
Valentino evoked on screen. He was short, with a smallish mouth,
(26:41):
and while he was definitely athletic, he was also slightly pudgy.
Navarro's seduction technique, even in the films where he played
a cad, was playful, naughty, innocent, Oh you would go,
that would do you little? In a word, Ramon Navarro
(27:05):
was cute, a lovable, love struck scamp, and an uninhibited
romantic with loads of charm. I lost my career today,
but I don't care. I'm happy today. I found the
most glorious girl in the whole world. Nothing about Navarro
spoke of menace or danger. Today I found love. Ironically,
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Navarro reached his peak and popularity at a time when
prejudice towards Mexican immigrants had become extremely common. Mexicans had
been welcomed as cheap labor to the US, but at
the same time they were resented, and Hollywood's depictions of
handlebarred bandidos in westerns were at least partially to blame.
Whether Valentino and Navarro were sensations because or in spite
(27:54):
of being immigrants is hard to say, but the studios
consciously avoided casting either of them as their native nationalities.
To audiences, they were simply acceptably exotic celebrities. Now, until
four Novarro was one of the world's biggest stars, one
of the few to straddle silent films and talkies. Then
(28:17):
two things happened. Hollywood turned toward more stoic, traditionally manly
man like Clark Cable and Gary Cooper for its romantic
male leads that was not Navarro. At the same time,
the old fashioned operettas that had made Navarro so popular
fell out of fashion. In favor of newer sounding musicals,
(28:40):
led by the likes of fred As Stair. I'm longing
to be in chains and that's with me. One final
MGM musical, The Night Is Young, in cemented the end
(29:01):
for Navarro with us and apple Struds. I've ordered apple
Strudo without students. Love you listen. I happen to love
both veener Schnitzel and apple Strudel, But this movie gave
me indigestion. It tanked with both critics and audiences, and
(29:26):
m GM fired Navarro. Navarro had had a good run,
make that a great run. He lived comfortably over the
next few decades, even helping to take care of his
many siblings and their families, having smartly invested his money
in real estate. Oh, I feel very fortunate because I
know people that have certainly much more intelligence than I had,
(29:46):
an intelligence and ability, and yet I'd be fortunate in
the investing my money rightly. Ramon Navarro's legacy would likely
be his very real early stardom if not for the
way he died at the age of sixty nine. Navarro
was murdered in his Hollywood home on October by two
(30:11):
male hustlers. The details are lurid, and we're not going
to get into them here, but the general circumstances of
his death and the trial that followed revealed to the
world what Hollywood insiders had long known. Navarro was gay.
As a young star, he had refused to give into
(30:31):
studio pressure to marry a woman. In his early days,
he'd had a few relationships, but as he grew older,
biographer Andre Suarez beliefs Navarro had become less self accepting
and found it harder to reconcile his Catholic faith with
his sexuality. He drank to excess, and he paid for sex.
When he eventually lost his driver's license, navarro secretary would
(30:55):
drive him to church. If Navarro noticed a handsome young
man walking the sidewalk, he would quickly cross himself. At
the trial of his murderers, the defense attorney victim blamed,
saying contemptuously to the jury, back in the days of Valentino,
this man who set female hearts of flutter was nothing
(31:16):
but a queer. Navarro, he argued, had invited this upon himself.
Sadly in that was a compelling argument. Neither murderer served
more than nine years for this crime. Posthumously, Navarro's name
fell further into disgrace thanks to Hollywood Babylon. Hollywood Babylon
(31:38):
is a book by a man named Kenneth Anger, and
that's pretty much where the facts end. It's attacking and
tasteless compilation of scandals and hearsay about the very first
movie stars, and it was a best seller. The most
infamous edition in included gruesome graphic photos of celebrity deaths
(31:59):
we its litany of lies. Hollywood Babylon ensured that Navarro's
death would overshadow his life. When the fabulous MGM retrospectives
That's Entertainment and its sequel were released in the nineteen seventies,
they included dozens of clips from Hollywood's earliest musicals. Navarro
(32:23):
was conspicuously absent at that time. It may have been
impossible to honor him properly without invoking his recent troubling demise.
And that's a big shame. Tears to remembering Ramon Navarro
as he was in his Latin Lover Heyday with that
wonderful warble up next, Lat Lover's invade television, just before
(33:02):
their last big hurrah on the silver screen. You know,
Ricky another Rudolph Valentino, Ricky Ricky ricking me. That's who
(33:28):
the studio just had to go over and have my
picture taken with Ricky Ricardo, whoever he is? Haven't you mad? You?
He's a handsome Latin with an accent. He's the end
the living en. By the nineteen fifties, the whole idea
of the Latin lover had become something of a punch
(33:49):
line on TV. Ricardo Alberto Fernando Ricardo, I love Lucy's
Ricky Ricardo has played by Desi Arnaz, is hardly dangerous.
This Latin lover was safely domesticated. What a dream of situation.
And I bet you know a million girls? Where's your
address book? I burned it. I hadn't been in this
(34:14):
country very long, and Lucy said it was part of
the American marriage ceremony. Over on the big screen. The
Latin lover vehicles of the period were gloriously cheeseball. Here's
Mexican Heartthrob Ricardo Montalban teaching some poor sap his own
seduction technique. In Neptune's Daughter, you must say to her,
(34:42):
why do I have to speak Spanish? Because it's a
language of love? Women can resist it. Not surprisingly, Montaban
didn't like being typecast, as he later recalled in a
CBS interview, but I didn't know what it meant, you
see Latin love it. I it meant a man, I
guess I going into Hollywood with slick hair, Natalie dressed
(35:04):
and kissing ladies hands, you know. And it was a caricature,
so I I kind of resented it. There were vapid roles.
Perhaps the most successful of the Latin lovers of this period,
and one of the last, was dapper Debonair Fernando Lamas.
Aren't you rather forgetting yourself? Maybe I always forget myself
(35:25):
when I'm near a beautiful rule. Neither dangerous like Valentino
nor boyish like Navarro, Lamas was instead a smooth operator.
Come to my home tomorrow and I will show you
the real Gord of California, the sweet smelling hay and plums,
and the grapes, and the prod cattle and the bigs.
(35:47):
Do you like pigs, lady? Normally that's a few. At
the height of his popularity, Fernando married movie star and
businesswoman are Lean Tall, a Minnesotan of Norwegian descent, and
the couple were expecting a child when they spoke to
Edward R. Murrow on person to person, have you picked
a name for the baby and not? Not yet. We
(36:10):
have in mind a couple of names. But he's not
quite easy, isn't No. It's not easy to see both
my father and for not to want a boy. So
we've been concentrating only on boys names, right. You see,
he's got to go with the name Lamas, and I
don't think that, for example, Sam Lamas would really go
out together. You know, they did not name their son Sam.
(36:31):
As much as I was stereotyped as a jock, Dad
was stereotyped as a Latin lover. That's actor and son
of Fernando Lorenzo Lamas. And he told me it's good
to be stereotyped and have steady work, then to not
be stereotyped and go without having the phone ring for
months at a time. Lorenzo would go on to have
(36:53):
his own movie and TV career. I first came to
know him for his work on the nighttime soap Falcon Crest.
You created Falcon Crest in your own image, Grandmother, My
mother and I are the way we are because of
you and if I've turned against you, it's your own fault.
You get out of my sight. I really think the
(37:14):
Latin lover was introduced to the American audience to give
people a chance to look at an emotional man, a
man that is not afraid to show his feelings. Fernando
Lamas was discovered in his native Argentina by an MGM
talent scout. He was of a group of people like
(37:35):
ss A Ramaron, Ricardo montal Bond that were brought to
the studio system to play that kind of that spoiler,
the Latin lover that comes into the storyline and kind
of breaks up the couple, and they would play the
continental swave, you know, sophisticated man about town. How many
may have told you that you're the most beautiful girl
(37:55):
they have ever seen. Fernando took to the Latin lover
role on screen and off movie Star and Champions Swimmer.
Esther Williams would become his fourth wife. She later recalled
the first time they met, tell me something, Fernando, you
have a terrible reputation. Do you still have a lot
(38:16):
of fooling around to do? And he said, such an
honest question deserves an out to answer. He says, I'm
afraid I do, and I said, you kill me. I
said goodbye to him and I was saw him for
eight years. By the late fifties, Fernando was eager to
leave the onscreen part of the role behind. I'm very
happy to say that I'm walking away from one role
(38:38):
that I seem to be stuck with in quite another
of my pictures in Hollywood. That's what I called the
Latin lover type of a role, which is the one
dimensional you know only it calls for a starting one hand,
a blonde dame on the other, and the horse waiting
outside that's all black hair and long pink. And indeed,
by the end of the decade, the Latin lover had
(39:00):
largely banished from the big screen. But, much to the
dismay of Lamas, this didn't lead to better opportunities. As
he later explained to Johnny Carson, I'm in a nine sixty.
No foreign man is allowed to play a leading role.
Like if we had an operation of something. You didn't
(39:21):
know that you have an operations, You're gonna may love
an Marsa. Now you play the friend of the leading man,
who is some dumb guy from Topeka or oh, you'll
play the heavy. The Latin lover was being replaced by
the Latin criminal, all too often the urban gang member
by Ella Nasa collection time. Okay, girl, come on come,
(39:46):
I'm gonna get the money ready. This man needs some
great Former movie star Latin lovers had to turn elsewhere
for work. By your guests, I am Mr Rourke, your host.
Welcome to Fantasy Island. Ricardo Montauban became the star of
TV's Fantasy Island, where I would watch him every Saturday night. Smiles,
(40:08):
everyone smiles. No longer cast as a romantic lead, he
was also during commercial breaks romancing car seats, venue small prison.
Here is the warm, thickly cushion contour seats available even
(40:28):
in Fine Corinthiander. By the way, fine Corinthian leather is
a marketing term, not any actual type of leather. As
for Fernando Lamas, he turned to directing for television. He
directed Lorenzo in several episodes of Falcon Crest. Fernando's name
and fame slowly faded until Pop Culture twice turned the
(40:51):
spotlight back on him. It's time now for Fernando's bideaway.
Find that yours, my friends, I'm so happy to be
at tonight. In the recurring Saturday Night Live segment Fernando's Hideaway,
Billy Crystal parodied the Elder Lamas inspired says Lorenzo buy
(41:14):
an appearance Fernando had made on The Tonight Show, and
Billy was watching Dad the way he was on Johnny Carson,
and Dad came in and appeared, and he had a
little bit of a cult. Johnny said, So for I
understand you're a little under the weather tonight, because yes,
Johnny and Lutheran to the weather, not not, you know,
feeling to moral us. But it's always better to look
(41:36):
good than to feel good, right, I would rather look
good than to feel good. You know what I'm saying
to your dolling mama. You look thank you, but you
look pretty good yourself. I'm rushing inside my temperature. Dad
loved it because Billy was introducing my father to an
audience of people that didn't know who he was. By
(41:57):
the way, there really was a Fernando's Hie to way
in that appearance on Person to Person. Back in nineteen
fifty seven, Fernando led Edward R. Murrow on a tour
through his Manhattan town house and to his man cave.
This is the room where you got away from it all?
Is that? That's why? Definitely, you know, I think a
man who hasn't what has to be along with himself.
(42:18):
But what's the sign just beside you? There is the
sign here says exactly Fernando's high The way is the
picture of a bullfight? Is it? Fernando Lamas died in
but another tribute of a sort came posthumously in a
popular beer campaign in two thousand six. In the First Life,
(42:38):
he was himself. If opportunity knocks and he's not home,
opportunity wings. He gave his father the talk. He is
the most Interesting man in the world. Character actor Jonathan Goldsmith,
a good friend to Fernando's audition and for a commercial
(43:01):
for Doseki Spear and the character that Dosekis was looking
for was some sort of Latin lover type. Goldsmith, a
self described Jewish guy from the Bronx, summoned the spirit
of his beloved lost friend and the most Interesting Man
in the World was basically from Jonathan's memory of the
(43:21):
times that he spent with Dad. Running in place will
never get you the same results as running from Claya
Fernando Lamas was never entirely able to shake the Latin
lover label. His New York Times obituary David October two
starts off, Fernando Lamas, the silver haired star of numerous
(43:47):
Latin Lover movies, died today of cancer. He was sixty
seven years old. There when you realize that Valentino he
invented the leading men, and he came on and he
invented the thing, and he dressed himself funny, and Buddy
(44:09):
caught on, and then there were a lot of funnis
that followed. We've left the Latin lover behind us, and
as with most all stereotypes, that's for the best. But
let's also acknowledge that the Latin Lover allowed foreigners to
be leading men for the first time. And while it's
rare to see someone marketed as a Latin lover today,
(44:33):
some of his better aspects have been absorbed, assimilated into
today's leading men of all ethnicities. Even the most macho
man mus now also have some emotional awareness and vulnerability. Yes,
behind each posturing, chest thumping bro in Magic Mike, there's
(44:53):
a surprisingly sensitive guy who just wants to be loved.
I'm not my lifestyle. I'm not a in my magic
in my magic mike right now talking to you. I'm
not my goddamn job. And that's not who, That's not
what I That's not what I do. That's I mean,
this is what I do, but it's not who I am.
Sure every once in a while somebody bemoans the loss
(45:14):
of the stoic leading man. What have that happened to?
Gary Cooper? The strong, silent type that was an American.
He wasn't in touch with his feelings. He just did
what he had to do to what they didn't know.
Once they got Gary Cooper in touch with his feelings
that they wouldn't be able to shut him up. But
there's no going back day, not form, nothing. But you
(45:37):
get a little confused here. That was the movies there's
on you have. I certainly hope you enjoyed this mobituary.
(46:02):
May I ask you to please rate and review the podcast.
You can also follow mobituaries on Facebook and Instagram, and
you can follow me on Twitter at Morocca. Listen to
mobituaries on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts,
and might I suggest mobituaries great lives worth reliving the
New York Times best selling book, now available in paperback
(46:24):
and audio book. It includes plenty of stories not in
the podcast, and I gotta say it's kind of a
perfect stocking stuffer. This episode of Mobituaries was produced by
Francisco Robina and Aaron Shrank. Our team of producers also
includes Wilco, Martina Scaceto, and me Morocca. It was edited
(46:48):
by Moral Walls and engineered by Josh Hahn, with fact
checking by Naomi Barr. Our production company is Neon hom Media.
Our archival producer is Jamie Benson. Our theme music is
written by Daniel Hart. Indispensable support from Craig Swaggler, Dustin Gervais,
Alan Peg, Reggie Basil and everyone at CBS News Radio.
(47:11):
Special thanks to Andre Suarez, Mattia, Santonio Bombal Lauda, Isabel
Cerna and Alberto Robina, the Unsinkable Aaron Shrink as our
senior producer. Executive producers for Mobituaries include Steve Raises and Morocca.
The series is created by Yours Truly and as always,
(47:33):
undying gratitude to Rand Morrison and John carp for helping
breathe life into Mobituaries. Before we go Hollywood also had
its female Latin lovers. The pioneering and stunning Dolores del
Rio was Ramon Navarro's second cousin. Del Rio was often
(47:53):
called the female Rudolf Valentino. She and her contemporary Lupe
Vells paved the way for other Latin actresses like Carmen
Miranda and Maria Montez. The storied history of those Latin
lovers is its own tail, deserving its own future mobituary.
I think you like that very much. You like that too,
(48:16):
of course I'm willing to everyone else. Is you want
to know what I think. I can't tell what I said.
It's okay, stan Leando, do you make it sounds nothing?
You don't know not to call the battles? Yeah, you're not.
Wish I couldn't you know saying that in English
For years, I went to a psychotherapist just three doors
down from a funeral parlor. I gotta tell you, passing
by mourners on my way to therapy really put me
in the right headspace too, you know, think about what
I wanted my own life to add up to. I
highly recommend choosing a psychotherapist with an office next to
(00:23):
a funeral parlor. Now let's travel back in time nearly
a century ago to Manhattan's Upper West Side. It's a
sweltering late summer day, and we're standing in front of
the Frank E. Campbell Funeral Chapel, then located at Broadway
and sixty Street. Over the next hundred years, Campbell's will
(00:45):
serve as the funeral home for legends from Judy Garland
to Jackie Oh to the notorious b I. G. But
they won't draw the crowds seen on Tuesday August when
the sidewalks are overflowing with a crowd of some thirty
thousand warners. They've all gathered here to catch a final
(01:09):
glimpse of a fallen movie star. Arguably the first male
sex symbol of the silver screen. He was in great
physical shape, and you see those rippling muscles in his arms.
I mean, I don't know if you've ever seen the
(01:29):
videos of him doing his workout while he's wearing pretty
much just skivvy. Okay, I'll check those out. I haven't
seen those. I need to see that he was labeled
the Great Lover, or even more indelibly, the Latin Lover.
(01:49):
He would hold you in his arms if you were
a beautiful woman, and kiss you passionately and brutally. Can
somebody turn down the thermostat and here is I'm feeling hot?
No one burned up the screen like Rudolph Valentino, driving
(02:11):
women across the planet wild in a way that no
one had before him, enough to leave a permanent mark
in the world that he suddenly left behind. At the
tender age of thirty one. Along Broadway, a procession of
dark cars carries Valentino's rose covered, bronze and silver coffin
(02:33):
to the chapel. The crowd grows unruly, a scene recreated
in the film Valentino. Rain is falling, but instead of
cooling things off, the crowd explodes into a riot. The
mourners become a mob, push punching, fighting their way to
(02:56):
get into the funeral parlor. The surgeon. Crowd pushes a
line of policemen, causing the windows of the chapel to shatter.
Mounted police officers try to quell the riot, which lasts
for hours. Over a hundred are hurt. An improvised emergency
room is set up inside the funeral chapel, with the
(03:19):
doctors and nurses ministering to the many injured. The streets
are covered in debris. A young woman drenched from head
to toe ambles in her stockinged feet, weeping. I must
see him, I must see him. But how did we
get here? How did Rudolph Valentino reach such dizzy heights?
(03:43):
Why all of this howling, hysterical sorrow? And what exactly
is a Latin lover? He's a handsome Latin with an accent.
He's in the living in. Of course, there would be
many rivals for valen Tino's Latin lover Crown. I was
(04:03):
ruined by Raymond Navarrow. Raymond Navarro the movie star will
tell their stories and talk to Latin lover Scion Lorenzo
Lamas Dad was the original Latin dragon. He was the
original lothario of fame and notoriety, and his romances are legendary.
(04:24):
Did you tell me something, Fernando, you have a terrible reputation.
Do you still have a lot of fooling around to do?
And we'll tell you how the Latin Lover vanished from
Hollywood just as suddenly as he had appeared. I'm in
a night. No fine man is allowed to play a
leading role, like if we have an operation of someone
(04:46):
from CBS Sunday morning and I heart I'm Morocca and
this is mobituaries this moment dolf Valentino, Ramon Navarro and
a Tale of Two Lamas. October eighth, the Death of
(05:10):
the Latin Lover. World War One ended in and its
conclusion ushered in the beginning of the sexual Revolution. Wait
(05:32):
a minute, the sexual revolution that happened in the nineteen sixties,
didn't it well, There actually was an earlier sexual revolution
in the nineteen twenties. Out of the devastation of World
War One emerged a new American woman with a new
sense of sexual freedom, a modern woman. Women had finally
(05:54):
won the right to vote, and we're joining the workforce
in unprecedented numbers. The Great War had made American women
more aware of the world at large, and these women
were going to the movies. Approximately eighty three percent of
movie goers were women. Enter Rudolph Valentino, our first Latin
(06:14):
lover of the silver screen. Valentino was born Rodolfo Pietro
Filiberto Raphaele Googliemi on May six in the province of
Toronto in southern Italy. What was the appeal of Valentino? Well,
he was handsome, he was elegant. He was a dynamite dancer.
(06:41):
I mean, he was a professional dancer before he became
an actor. I'm talking to Emily wardis Lder, author of
Dark Lover, The Life and Death of Rudolph Valentino. Try
to ignore the noise in the background. And if you've
seen him dance on screen, he was so graceful and
(07:02):
dynamic as a performer. Emily, are you sorry? Are you
cooking there? My husband is getting ready for his lunch.
What is he What is he making? Salad? Okay? Al right?
Could he just be a little quieter with the tongs.
The Italian economy collapsed after World War One, and Rodolfo
(07:24):
emigrated alone to America, arriving at Ellis Island at the
age of eighteen. He first made his living as what
was known as a taxi dancer. He was doing that
pretty much from the time he was right off the
boat in New York. Taxi dancers worked in dance halls,
(07:45):
charging patrons a dime for a dance, a profession immortalized
by the Rogers and Hart song ten cents a dance,
and was that His primary ambition was that sort of
the end goal to be a dancer, not his empty
at all. He wanted respect, but working as a taxi
(08:05):
dancer was seen a sort of jigglo adjacent. That's not
high prestige all that you need. Come on. At twenty three,
Rodolpho headed to Hollywood and adopted the much more marquis
(08:27):
friendly name Rudolph Valentino. He played bit parts in various
B movies, often his Criminals and Low Lifes, until he
was discovered by June Mathis, one of the most successful
women in early Hollywood. She was a power in her
own right. I think most people would be surprised at
(08:48):
the power that several women had in Hollywood during the
silent film era. Women were a force in the era
of silent films. They only lost hour later, and they
did of course. Matthis was a screenwriter and producer, ultimately
being credited on more than one films, and she picked
(09:11):
him out and she gets the credit for being the
person who discovered law Valentino. Oh, if you're intrigued by
unsung powerful women in Hollywood's earliest days, check out our
season one episode Forgotten Forerunners, which features silent film trailblazer
Lois Webber. Okay, so there are no taped interviews of
June Mathis, but there's this ABC made for TV movie
(09:35):
from five called The Legend of Valentino, and it stars
the incomparable Suzanne Plachette as June Mathis. Here she is
arguing with Metro Studio executives over whether or not to
cast Valentino in her next big movie. Photographs like a foreigner.
Foreigners have to play heavies. American women won't trust them.
(09:57):
They trust American man read them, don't they? Who was
talking about marriage? I'm talking about sex, Sam. This is
nineteen twenty. It would just be through a world war.
Women are wearing one piece bathing suits, they're drinking bathtub gin,
they're dancing the black bottom. And the only thing that
hasn't changed is the screen. I mean, we are still
(10:18):
pretending it's sex was invented by Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm. Now,
why can't we be closer to reality? June Mathis had
seen Valentino dance. She knew he had it. I mean,
women aboard their restless They're tired of being protected and
American men are dull. Now, by the early nineteen twenties,
Americans had been going to the movies for more than
(10:41):
a decade, but the typical leading man of the day
was square jawed all American, unassailably moral. Think that the
swashbuckling Douglas Fairbanks, very Protestant, hair parted, white shirt suit.
We're talking menace here, We're talking a gentleman. A gentleman.
(11:05):
Was he demonstrative with women? There wasn't much heat, but
Douglas Fairbanks was certainly very exciting. Not as a lover
on screen. It was an athlete, not such a good kisser.
But for decades Italian immigrants had been smeared in newspapers
(11:25):
as gangsters, which is also the only way they showed
up in movies. The Emergency Quota Act codified this bigotry
by drastically limiting the number of people coming in from
southern and Eastern Europe, there was a special prejudice against
Italian immigrants. They were just one step above being black
(11:50):
in the eyes of filmmakers and society at large white audiences.
But June math Is envisioned an alternative. Bear in mind
this was a full century before me too. I mean,
if we're going to buy a dream, we're gonna buy
the one about the handsome farn who drags it into
his bed against our will. You'd like that. I love
(12:12):
that scene, and so would your wife. Mathis got her
way and cast Valentino in her film The Four Horsemen
of the Apocalypse, and one scene in that film came
to define Valentino for his entire career. The tango scene. Well,
(12:33):
it starts with menace, which used to be and maybe
still is, considered sexy. Early on in the Silent film,
Valentino's character Julio is drinking in a crowded, divy Argentine bar,
wearing a gaucho outfit, wide flat brimmed hat with tassels
and a chin strap, buttoned up blousy shirt. A man
(12:56):
and woman are dancing a jaunty tango. Valentino's drives up
and taps the man on the shoulder. Never removing his
lit cigarette, he asks to cut in. Valentino exchanges a
smile and wink with the saucy Senorita. The man, however, refuses.
Valentino's eyes widened with fury. He then throws the man
(13:17):
aside and beats him. Then he breaks in and grabs
the woman quite brutally, and then tangles off with her.
So there is Mannas about to knock you out if
you don't hand over the woman. And that was sexy.
Oh yes, okay, these movies have not aged well, but
(13:44):
Valentino's on screen persona was an exotic fantasy that women
of the era bought into in a big way. The
famous tango scene only lasted a total of four minutes,
but it had a seismic impact. Is this the scene
that really makes him a superstar in my opinion? Yes,
(14:05):
But the Sheik took over and became better known, and
that was a real craze. Valentino's first leading man role
came that same year in The Chic, the movie adaptation
of the steamy, hugely popular romance novel The Chic, which
(14:26):
was basically the Fifty Shades of Gray of its day.
This was the racy debut of thirty nine year old
British novelist E. M. Hull a k a Edith maud Hull.
The book inspired a chart topping hit called The Chic
of Araby. Crowds went absolutely wild for Valentino as a
love struck but brutal Arab chic who melts the heart
(14:49):
of a captive modern woman. Chic mania swept the world.
Oh and I must see the house where Rudolph Valentino lived. Oh,
I'll never forget him in the sheet. I'm that her love.
(15:11):
It also inspired a string of chic rip off movies,
and it continued to press the tension between sex and violence.
That's an element in some fantasy romance attention that Valentino
would exploit in roll after role. And yet now you
also wrote about a vulnerable, wounded quality that Valentino had.
(15:34):
He has that in life, and he has it on
the screen too. Yes, I think it's about its own
emotional availability and vulnerability. You could see it in his face.
That softer side was an essential part of his appeal.
He would kiss the back of women's hands, he would
(15:55):
bow flourishes of chivalry that American women weren't used to
seeing in American men, his courtesy, his focus, his intensity.
He would make you feel like you were the only
woman in the world while he was kissing you anyhow,
and this gets to the heart of what made Valentino
(16:17):
so different from the leading men who came before. He
put the woman front and sent her very important. The
woman is central. It's all about adoring the woman, and
women adored him right back, sneaking onto trains, hiding in
bathrooms just for a chance to get close to him.
(16:39):
One Boston headline read ten girls mob World's greatest kisser.
Women of all ages created the matinee idol is What
is Bill doing back there? Is he pounding? Veal was pounding? Uh?
Tell me the truth? Is all this talk about Valentino
(17:01):
making him jealous? No, he wants his lunch, but out
of the public eye. Rudy was unlucky in love and
bad with money. He endured two unhappy marriages and made
poor business decisions. Leapfrogging from studio to studio. Valentino burned
bridges and lost allies and friends in the process, including
(17:25):
his first champion. June Mathis newspaper soon took to mocking
the star as Vassilino because of his slicked back hair. Now,
we've talked plenty about how women reacted to Valentino. Indeed,
Valentino was a man made by women. But how did
most American men react to him with suspicion? Hey, he
(17:47):
was a foreigner. He didn't have exactly white complexion. He
had all of complexion, which made him suspect. And see
the wise girl friend mother liked him too much, so
that was a threat. Valentino knew that he was beautiful.
He dressed to thrill. He wore jewelry spats over his shoes,
(18:12):
lemon yellow gloves with his impeccably tailored suits. Think David
Bowie meets Harry Styles. Enter the infamous pink powder puff attack.
That was such a smear. That was a smear job,
but it got a lot of press, the pink powder
puff attack. They attacked his masculinity totally without basis. In July,
(18:39):
in anonymous Chicago Tribune editorial alleged that the city's new
Aragon ballroom had installed a pink powder puff vending machine
in the men's washroom, encouraging men to powder their noses.
And it's squarely blamed Valentino without saying it. The editorial
accused Valentino of being gay. Valentino challenged the anonymous author,
(19:05):
first to a duel of honor and then to a
boxing match, but before anonymous could come forward it was
too late. Complaining of terrible abdominal pains, Valentino was given
an emergency double operation for acute appendicitis and perforated gastric ulcers.
The resulting sepsis took his life. After a week that will,
(19:38):
Valentino died at twelve ten pm on Monday August. This
tribute song was written by Vernon Dolhart. Just ten days
after Valentino perished. The Guardian newspaper wrote, no monarch or
war hero ever aroused more sympathetic public interest anywhere than
(20:00):
Valentino during the illness, which ended fatally. Today, the press
was flooded with reports of fainting women and suicide attempts.
Twenty seven year old actress Peggy Scott took her life
in London by poison. Twenty year old Angelina Celestina, mother
of two, took poison and shot herself in the bowery.
(20:22):
She was rescued and briefly institutionalized. Valentino received two separate
funerals the first in New York with its riots and mayhem.
Then his body was transported cross country via railroad to California.
At several stops, love struck fans lay down on the tracks,
delaying the trains progress to Valentino's final resting place in Hollywood. Well,
(20:50):
nobody in this country had seen anything like it since
the death of Abraham Lincoln, though that is really something else,
you know, when Lincoln does, his body was carried in
a famous train ride, and people gathered along the tracks
in morning and tribute. And the same thing happened when
(21:13):
Valentino died. The more sensationalized reactions to Valentino's to death
became part of the national consciousness for decades afterwards, as
evidenced by this brief side in Billy Wilder's comedy Some
Like It Hot. How about Roseberry Short She slashed the
wrist when Valentino, Well, we might as well all slash
our risk unless we round up two games. Valentino is
(21:38):
buried next to June Mathis, who, out of compassion, allowed
Valentino to be entuned in her crypt at Hollywood Forever Cemetery.
His estate couldn't afford to bury him there. They rest
side by side Valentine, but way up, there's on you story.
(22:13):
Within three years of his death, silent movies were officially finished.
Would Valentino have made it in talkies, Well, here's a
rare recording of him singing let's have a quick listen
and wonder what might have been. But it was the
(22:43):
singing voice of our next Latin lover which would allow
him to make the jump to talkies. Night. Ramon name
(23:11):
Samaniego Jose Ramon Hill Samaniego was born on February six Inturango, Mexico.
His large family was wealthy and influential and lost everything
in the Mexican Revolution. Seventeen year old Jose Ramon moved
to Los Angeles, where he supported his family by working
(23:35):
as a bus boy, a nude model, and a movie extra.
He dreamed of singing opera, and, just as Valentino had,
Samanego simplified his name to Ramon Navarro, although it was
much more frequently pronounced Ramon Navarro. Superstardom came with the
(23:56):
silent version of Ben Her. Now, this was thirty four
years before Charlton Heston's Panavision extravaganza Ben Her, I Tell
You the day room falls, there will be a shout
of freedom such as the world has never heard before.
But the earlier version was just as epic, the most
(24:16):
expensive movie of its time, and it was written by
none other than June Mathis. Mathis desperately wanted Valentino for
the title role, but Valentino was at the time on
the ounce with the studio. Navarro got the lead. The
world had a new Latin lover, the first Mexican actor
(24:37):
to make it in Hollywood. Navarro could dance, and he
could act. He was funny, and this was key to
his success in talkies. He could sing, I should like
to hear you sing. That's easy. I think I looked
anywhere without any good. Here he is singing the pagan
(24:59):
love song from the nine Polynesian romance The Pagan Nice.
And here he is as a romantic and reckless Napoleonic
French officer in Devil May Care. And here he is
(25:32):
crooning alongside fledgling movie soprano and future star Jeanette McDonald
in n GM's The Cat and the Fiddle. Okay, so
maybe that pigeon like warbling is not to our current tastes,
(25:54):
But save your bread crumbs. Navarro's operetta style of singing
was all the rage at the time. I'm Navarro had
only one accent for all of his speaking roles. Whether
he was playing an Egyptian, Belgian or Austrian, he always
spoke with his natural, lilting Mexican accent. Here he is
as a Russian. Just go with it, wooing the world
(26:16):
weary Swedish screen siren Greta Garbo in Mata Hari's a
strange boy who loves you, William, I love you as
when a door's sacred things. Let's sink of things. God, country,
honor you now. Navarro was not the sex god that
Valentino evoked on screen. He was short, with a smallish mouth,
(26:41):
and while he was definitely athletic, he was also slightly pudgy.
Navarro's seduction technique, even in the films where he played
a cad, was playful, naughty, innocent, Oh you would go,
that would do you little? In a word, Ramon Navarro
(27:05):
was cute, a lovable, love struck scamp, and an uninhibited
romantic with loads of charm. I lost my career today,
but I don't care. I'm happy today. I found the
most glorious girl in the whole world. Nothing about Navarro
spoke of menace or danger. Today I found love. Ironically,
(27:30):
Navarro reached his peak and popularity at a time when
prejudice towards Mexican immigrants had become extremely common. Mexicans had
been welcomed as cheap labor to the US, but at
the same time they were resented, and Hollywood's depictions of
handlebarred bandidos in westerns were at least partially to blame.
Whether Valentino and Navarro were sensations because or in spite
(27:54):
of being immigrants is hard to say, but the studios
consciously avoided casting either of them as their native nationalities.
To audiences, they were simply acceptably exotic celebrities. Now, until
four Novarro was one of the world's biggest stars, one
of the few to straddle silent films and talkies. Then
(28:17):
two things happened. Hollywood turned toward more stoic, traditionally manly
man like Clark Cable and Gary Cooper for its romantic
male leads that was not Navarro. At the same time,
the old fashioned operettas that had made Navarro so popular
fell out of fashion. In favor of newer sounding musicals,
(28:40):
led by the likes of fred As Stair. I'm longing
to be in chains and that's with me. One final
MGM musical, The Night Is Young, in cemented the end
(29:01):
for Navarro with us and apple Struds. I've ordered apple
Strudo without students. Love you listen. I happen to love
both veener Schnitzel and apple Strudel, But this movie gave
me indigestion. It tanked with both critics and audiences, and
(29:26):
m GM fired Navarro. Navarro had had a good run,
make that a great run. He lived comfortably over the
next few decades, even helping to take care of his
many siblings and their families, having smartly invested his money
in real estate. Oh, I feel very fortunate because I
know people that have certainly much more intelligence than I had,
(29:46):
an intelligence and ability, and yet I'd be fortunate in
the investing my money rightly. Ramon Navarro's legacy would likely
be his very real early stardom if not for the
way he died at the age of sixty nine. Navarro
was murdered in his Hollywood home on October by two
(30:11):
male hustlers. The details are lurid, and we're not going
to get into them here, but the general circumstances of
his death and the trial that followed revealed to the
world what Hollywood insiders had long known. Navarro was gay.
As a young star, he had refused to give into
(30:31):
studio pressure to marry a woman. In his early days,
he'd had a few relationships, but as he grew older,
biographer Andre Suarez beliefs Navarro had become less self accepting
and found it harder to reconcile his Catholic faith with
his sexuality. He drank to excess, and he paid for sex.
When he eventually lost his driver's license, navarro secretary would
(30:55):
drive him to church. If Navarro noticed a handsome young
man walking the sidewalk, he would quickly cross himself. At
the trial of his murderers, the defense attorney victim blamed,
saying contemptuously to the jury, back in the days of Valentino,
this man who set female hearts of flutter was nothing
(31:16):
but a queer. Navarro, he argued, had invited this upon himself.
Sadly in that was a compelling argument. Neither murderer served
more than nine years for this crime. Posthumously, Navarro's name
fell further into disgrace thanks to Hollywood Babylon. Hollywood Babylon
(31:38):
is a book by a man named Kenneth Anger, and
that's pretty much where the facts end. It's attacking and
tasteless compilation of scandals and hearsay about the very first
movie stars, and it was a best seller. The most
infamous edition in included gruesome graphic photos of celebrity deaths
(31:59):
we its litany of lies. Hollywood Babylon ensured that Navarro's
death would overshadow his life. When the fabulous MGM retrospectives
That's Entertainment and its sequel were released in the nineteen seventies,
they included dozens of clips from Hollywood's earliest musicals. Navarro
(32:23):
was conspicuously absent at that time. It may have been
impossible to honor him properly without invoking his recent troubling demise.
And that's a big shame. Tears to remembering Ramon Navarro
as he was in his Latin Lover Heyday with that
wonderful warble up next, Lat Lover's invade television, just before
(33:02):
their last big hurrah on the silver screen. You know,
Ricky another Rudolph Valentino, Ricky Ricky ricking me. That's who
(33:28):
the studio just had to go over and have my
picture taken with Ricky Ricardo, whoever he is? Haven't you mad? You?
He's a handsome Latin with an accent. He's the end
the living en. By the nineteen fifties, the whole idea
of the Latin lover had become something of a punch
(33:49):
line on TV. Ricardo Alberto Fernando Ricardo, I love Lucy's
Ricky Ricardo has played by Desi Arnaz, is hardly dangerous.
This Latin lover was safely domesticated. What a dream of situation.
And I bet you know a million girls? Where's your
address book? I burned it. I hadn't been in this
(34:14):
country very long, and Lucy said it was part of
the American marriage ceremony. Over on the big screen. The
Latin lover vehicles of the period were gloriously cheeseball. Here's
Mexican Heartthrob Ricardo Montalban teaching some poor sap his own
seduction technique. In Neptune's Daughter, you must say to her,
(34:42):
why do I have to speak Spanish? Because it's a
language of love? Women can resist it. Not surprisingly, Montaban
didn't like being typecast, as he later recalled in a
CBS interview, but I didn't know what it meant, you
see Latin love it. I it meant a man, I
guess I going into Hollywood with slick hair, Natalie dressed
(35:04):
and kissing ladies hands, you know. And it was a caricature,
so I I kind of resented it. There were vapid roles.
Perhaps the most successful of the Latin lovers of this period,
and one of the last, was dapper Debonair Fernando Lamas.
Aren't you rather forgetting yourself? Maybe I always forget myself
(35:25):
when I'm near a beautiful rule. Neither dangerous like Valentino
nor boyish like Navarro, Lamas was instead a smooth operator.
Come to my home tomorrow and I will show you
the real Gord of California, the sweet smelling hay and plums,
and the grapes, and the prod cattle and the bigs.
(35:47):
Do you like pigs, lady? Normally that's a few. At
the height of his popularity, Fernando married movie star and
businesswoman are Lean Tall, a Minnesotan of Norwegian descent, and
the couple were expecting a child when they spoke to
Edward R. Murrow on person to person, have you picked
a name for the baby and not? Not yet. We
(36:10):
have in mind a couple of names. But he's not
quite easy, isn't No. It's not easy to see both
my father and for not to want a boy. So
we've been concentrating only on boys names, right. You see,
he's got to go with the name Lamas, and I
don't think that, for example, Sam Lamas would really go
out together. You know, they did not name their son Sam.
(36:31):
As much as I was stereotyped as a jock, Dad
was stereotyped as a Latin lover. That's actor and son
of Fernando Lorenzo Lamas. And he told me it's good
to be stereotyped and have steady work, then to not
be stereotyped and go without having the phone ring for
months at a time. Lorenzo would go on to have
(36:53):
his own movie and TV career. I first came to
know him for his work on the nighttime soap Falcon Crest.
You created Falcon Crest in your own image, Grandmother, My
mother and I are the way we are because of
you and if I've turned against you, it's your own fault.
You get out of my sight. I really think the
(37:14):
Latin lover was introduced to the American audience to give
people a chance to look at an emotional man, a
man that is not afraid to show his feelings. Fernando
Lamas was discovered in his native Argentina by an MGM
talent scout. He was of a group of people like
(37:35):
ss A Ramaron, Ricardo montal Bond that were brought to
the studio system to play that kind of that spoiler,
the Latin lover that comes into the storyline and kind
of breaks up the couple, and they would play the
continental swave, you know, sophisticated man about town. How many
may have told you that you're the most beautiful girl
(37:55):
they have ever seen. Fernando took to the Latin lover
role on screen and off movie Star and Champions Swimmer.
Esther Williams would become his fourth wife. She later recalled
the first time they met, tell me something, Fernando, you
have a terrible reputation. Do you still have a lot
(38:16):
of fooling around to do? And he said, such an
honest question deserves an out to answer. He says, I'm
afraid I do, and I said, you kill me. I
said goodbye to him and I was saw him for
eight years. By the late fifties, Fernando was eager to
leave the onscreen part of the role behind. I'm very
happy to say that I'm walking away from one role
(38:38):
that I seem to be stuck with in quite another
of my pictures in Hollywood. That's what I called the
Latin lover type of a role, which is the one
dimensional you know only it calls for a starting one hand,
a blonde dame on the other, and the horse waiting
outside that's all black hair and long pink. And indeed,
by the end of the decade, the Latin lover had
(39:00):
largely banished from the big screen. But, much to the
dismay of Lamas, this didn't lead to better opportunities. As
he later explained to Johnny Carson, I'm in a nine sixty.
No foreign man is allowed to play a leading role.
Like if we had an operation of something. You didn't
(39:21):
know that you have an operations, You're gonna may love
an Marsa. Now you play the friend of the leading man,
who is some dumb guy from Topeka or oh, you'll
play the heavy. The Latin lover was being replaced by
the Latin criminal, all too often the urban gang member
by Ella Nasa collection time. Okay, girl, come on come,
(39:46):
I'm gonna get the money ready. This man needs some
great Former movie star Latin lovers had to turn elsewhere
for work. By your guests, I am Mr Rourke, your host.
Welcome to Fantasy Island. Ricardo Montauban became the star of
TV's Fantasy Island, where I would watch him every Saturday night. Smiles,
(40:08):
everyone smiles. No longer cast as a romantic lead, he
was also during commercial breaks romancing car seats, venue small prison.
Here is the warm, thickly cushion contour seats available even
(40:28):
in Fine Corinthiander. By the way, fine Corinthian leather is
a marketing term, not any actual type of leather. As
for Fernando Lamas, he turned to directing for television. He
directed Lorenzo in several episodes of Falcon Crest. Fernando's name
and fame slowly faded until Pop Culture twice turned the
(40:51):
spotlight back on him. It's time now for Fernando's bideaway.
Find that yours, my friends, I'm so happy to be
at tonight. In the recurring Saturday Night Live segment Fernando's Hideaway,
Billy Crystal parodied the Elder Lamas inspired says Lorenzo buy
(41:14):
an appearance Fernando had made on The Tonight Show, and
Billy was watching Dad the way he was on Johnny Carson,
and Dad came in and appeared, and he had a
little bit of a cult. Johnny said, So for I
understand you're a little under the weather tonight, because yes,
Johnny and Lutheran to the weather, not not, you know,
feeling to moral us. But it's always better to look
(41:36):
good than to feel good, right, I would rather look
good than to feel good. You know what I'm saying
to your dolling mama. You look thank you, but you
look pretty good yourself. I'm rushing inside my temperature. Dad
loved it because Billy was introducing my father to an
audience of people that didn't know who he was. By
(41:57):
the way, there really was a Fernando's Hie to way
in that appearance on Person to Person. Back in nineteen
fifty seven, Fernando led Edward R. Murrow on a tour
through his Manhattan town house and to his man cave.
This is the room where you got away from it all?
Is that? That's why? Definitely, you know, I think a
man who hasn't what has to be along with himself.
(42:18):
But what's the sign just beside you? There is the
sign here says exactly Fernando's high The way is the
picture of a bullfight? Is it? Fernando Lamas died in
but another tribute of a sort came posthumously in a
popular beer campaign in two thousand six. In the First Life,
(42:38):
he was himself. If opportunity knocks and he's not home,
opportunity wings. He gave his father the talk. He is
the most Interesting man in the world. Character actor Jonathan Goldsmith,
a good friend to Fernando's audition and for a commercial
(43:01):
for Doseki Spear and the character that Dosekis was looking
for was some sort of Latin lover type. Goldsmith, a
self described Jewish guy from the Bronx, summoned the spirit
of his beloved lost friend and the most Interesting Man
in the World was basically from Jonathan's memory of the
(43:21):
times that he spent with Dad. Running in place will
never get you the same results as running from Claya
Fernando Lamas was never entirely able to shake the Latin
lover label. His New York Times obituary David October two
starts off, Fernando Lamas, the silver haired star of numerous
(43:47):
Latin Lover movies, died today of cancer. He was sixty
seven years old. There when you realize that Valentino he
invented the leading men, and he came on and he
invented the thing, and he dressed himself funny, and Buddy
(44:09):
caught on, and then there were a lot of funnis
that followed. We've left the Latin lover behind us, and
as with most all stereotypes, that's for the best. But
let's also acknowledge that the Latin Lover allowed foreigners to
be leading men for the first time. And while it's
rare to see someone marketed as a Latin lover today,
(44:33):
some of his better aspects have been absorbed, assimilated into
today's leading men of all ethnicities. Even the most macho
man mus now also have some emotional awareness and vulnerability. Yes,
behind each posturing, chest thumping bro in Magic Mike, there's
(44:53):
a surprisingly sensitive guy who just wants to be loved.
I'm not my lifestyle. I'm not a in my magic
in my magic mike right now talking to you. I'm
not my goddamn job. And that's not who, That's not
what I That's not what I do. That's I mean,
this is what I do, but it's not who I am.
Sure every once in a while somebody bemoans the loss
(45:14):
of the stoic leading man. What have that happened to?
Gary Cooper? The strong, silent type that was an American.
He wasn't in touch with his feelings. He just did
what he had to do to what they didn't know.
Once they got Gary Cooper in touch with his feelings
that they wouldn't be able to shut him up. But
there's no going back day, not form, nothing. But you
(45:37):
get a little confused here. That was the movies there's
on you have. I certainly hope you enjoyed this mobituary.
(46:02):
May I ask you to please rate and review the podcast.
You can also follow mobituaries on Facebook and Instagram, and
you can follow me on Twitter at Morocca. Listen to
mobituaries on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts,
and might I suggest mobituaries great lives worth reliving the
New York Times best selling book, now available in paperback
(46:24):
and audio book. It includes plenty of stories not in
the podcast, and I gotta say it's kind of a
perfect stocking stuffer. This episode of Mobituaries was produced by
Francisco Robina and Aaron Shrank. Our team of producers also
includes Wilco, Martina Scaceto, and me Morocca. It was edited
(46:48):
by Moral Walls and engineered by Josh Hahn, with fact
checking by Naomi Barr. Our production company is Neon hom Media.
Our archival producer is Jamie Benson. Our theme music is
written by Daniel Hart. Indispensable support from Craig Swaggler, Dustin Gervais,
Alan Peg, Reggie Basil and everyone at CBS News Radio.
(47:11):
Special thanks to Andre Suarez, Mattia, Santonio Bombal Lauda, Isabel
Cerna and Alberto Robina, the Unsinkable Aaron Shrink as our
senior producer. Executive producers for Mobituaries include Steve Raises and Morocca.
The series is created by Yours Truly and as always,
(47:33):
undying gratitude to Rand Morrison and John carp for helping
breathe life into Mobituaries. Before we go Hollywood also had
its female Latin lovers. The pioneering and stunning Dolores del
Rio was Ramon Navarro's second cousin. Del Rio was often
(47:53):
called the female Rudolf Valentino. She and her contemporary Lupe
Vells paved the way for other Latin actresses like Carmen
Miranda and Maria Montez. The storied history of those Latin
lovers is its own tail, deserving its own future mobituary.
I think you like that very much. You like that too,
(48:16):
of course I'm willing to everyone else. Is you want
to know what I think. I can't tell what I said.
It's okay, stan Leando, do you make it sounds nothing?
You don't know not to call the battles? Yeah, you're not.
Wish I couldn't you know saying that in English
Host
Mo Rocca
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