For a time in the late 70s I wanted to be Ricardo Montalban.
I didn’t want to be as Mexican as he was, and I certainly didn’t want a midget scurrying about my feet wherever I went, but he oozed charm and coolness as he welcomed people to his island.
I wanted my own island. I still do. I certainly wouldn’t open it up to members of the public to trip about on like a Club 18-30 holiday. If I had a fantasy on my island it would be to fill it with people I didn’t like and send them out into a booby-trapped jungle enclosure with panthers after them.
Ricardo Montalban always struck me as a man who would have a fine musk about him, and isn’t that something we all aspire to?
Ricardo Montalban is no more. We will raise a glass to him in Ron’s and have our very own dia de los muertos but there will only be one muerto. Ricardo Montalban died yesterday aged 88. A true hero of our time.
And he outlived the midget by 15 years.
“From Hell’s dark heart I stab at thee”
Rest in oeace Khan.
I mean P-e-a-c-e.
with a ‘P’
KHAAAAAAAN!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxFQcxy2jFg
The Wrath of Khan wasn’t all that long ago and he was a fit old fucker even then. He must have been in his late sixties.
Saw him once in some b/w film about the U.S. border patrol on the Mexican border in the fifties but I dont recall any of his other early stuff.
Still, he had one of the best lines in recent film history:
‘Revenge is a dish best served cold.’
KhuuuuuurrrrKKKK… heh
Hey boss, hey boss, here come de plane boss.
His real name was Dick Whitehill, a sallow-skinned Canadian from Kingston, Ontario who went to Hollywood and got into playing Latino bit parts and changed his name accordingly.
Lies!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5575CtctqYU&feature=related
“fi unnerstand yoor manyools”
It’s all in a book called Los Angeles Ramon y Carmen: Latin Hollywood, 1930-1980. There’s a lot on Dolores Del Rio and the chapter about Carmen Miranda is a hoot.
I don’t know anything about Mexicans in the 70s. I do know about wanting my very own island, though. I’d put barbed wire all around it.
Nice one Conan, you had us all wondering for a moment.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricardo_Montalban
Fantasy Island must truly have been the worst of the awful 80s television… all the others were still on heavy rotation when I was revived
Wikipedia? Sure you can’t believe what you read on Wikipedia.
I’m not sure Fantasy Island was the worst.
I think Charles in Charge was probably the worst show of the 80s. That or Manimal.
Mr Merlin..hands down
I don’t even remember that.
http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=oSJsT-utYT4
Benson was shit
The Edison Twins
http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=3CMAK0N3U8k
Ahhh but Herve Villechaize (Tattoo) was actually 146 in midget years.
I remember Herve Villechaise from ‘The Man with the Golden Gun’. He portrayed Christopher Lee’s lethal butler, Oddknob.
The scene where Bond lands his flying boat at Scaramanga’s island had to be re-shot 128 times. Apparently, every time the flying boat came in to land the little fucker would run on to the beach shouting: “De plane, Boss, de plane!”
I was on a plane once and saw an actor but could not for the life of me remember who he was. It was driving me fucking insane. He was in a show years ago, back in the 80s but I just couldn’t place him. Three years later I woke up one morning and I remembered who he was, he was yer man off Benson, the white guy who’s now in one the Star Treks, Rene Auberjonois.
When Bruce Boxleitner dies, I shall hold a vigil.
Holemaster I just checked wikipedia to find out who you were talking about, and apparently his mothers name was:
Princess Laure Louise Napoléone Eugénie Caroline Murat
If you dont mind..
It was all going so well until we got to ‘Murat’. Sounds like a shithole in the Arabian Gulf
Red Leroy, I’ll be saluting the passage of Armand Assante.
When Mr.T dies I’m gonna buy a ticket to Philadelphia and do that rocky thing on the steps.NOW that man is a true legend.And even when he advertises substandard chocolate bars,HE ROCKS!!
Conan, shouldnt you be saluting the ‘passing’ of Armand Assante? Saluting his ‘passage’ has rather lurid connotations.
I miss Ricardo more than I ever expected.
Truly none of us know what we’ve got till it’s gone.
in retrospect, i think Dos Equis should have hired Ricardo Montalban to do a few ads for them as their “most interesting man in the world” (he has a Spanish accent too, which fits perfectly)