I'm In A Ricardo Cortez State Of Mind

 

Some or even most of you are probably wondering who the fuck Ricardo Cortez is, well I’ll tell you. He was born over 100 years ago with the name of Jacob Kranz and with his brother Stanislaus who would change his name to Stanley and become one of the legendary cinematographers in Hollywood filming such movies as The Magnificent Ambersons and The Night Of The Hunter, the two Jewish brothers made their way to Hollywood, where the handsome Jacob was reborn as Ricardo Cortez to cash in on the Latino lover mania that was sweeping the movies thanks to Rudolph Valentino. Ricardo appeared in many silent films, and made it big with “Torrent” getting billing over Greta Garbo. He was sexy and dangerous on screen, and when sound arrived he did ok, even with his heavy New York accent. I caught up with him the other night when I slipped into my dvd player the 1931 version of “The Maltese Falcon” in which he played Sam Spade, as a horny sexed up ladies man. He sizzled, and my tv gave off smoke when ever he appeared. Made during the anything goes pre-code period, this was a sexier version than the 1941 Huston-Bogart classic, but nowhere as great. But never mind, when Ricardo gave a dame a look you knew what was on his mind, and check out his hot and sexy walk through the prison to visit Bebe Daniels at the end of the film. Unfortunately he never became a big star, (his acting left much to be desired) and he was relegated to B’s and worse appearing in supporting roles in Mr. Moto and Charlie Chan films usually as the villain. After his film career was over he turned to Wall Street where he became a successful broker.