Ramon Novarro - Silent Star of February, 1998

by Kally Mavromatis

It was supposed to be a throwaway role, but when Valentino starred in The Sheik suddenly Hollywood couldn't get enough of Latin Lovers. Despite the steady stream of pretenders to the throne, it took a real-life Latin to capture the hearts and imaginations of filmgoers looking for romance.

Ramon Samaniegos was born 1899 in Durango, Mexico, the son of a prosperous dentist. His family left Mexico at the outbreak of the Mexican Revolution in 1910, eventually settling in Los Angeles. Ramon left L.A. for a time, working in New York as a singing waiter and other odd jobs, eventually returning to Hollywood. After working as an usher in a movie house, Ramon decided he liked the movies so much that he wanted to be in them.

He made his film debut in 1918 along with Wallace Beery in Mary Pickford 's The Little American , directed by Cecil B. DeMille . He continued to get work as an extra, appearing in the Paramount's The Goat as well as Small Town Idol, a 1921 Mack Sennett film.

He continued to labor in bit parts for the next five years until director Rex Ingram cast him as Rupert in The Prisoner of Zenda , along with Lewis Stone and Rex Ingram's wife, Alice Terry . Ingram was also the person who suggested that he change his name to Novarro. Ramon would continue to work with Ingram in his next four films and would again be teamed with Alice Terry in the successful 1922 movie Scaramouche .

It was during this time that the All-American, boy-next-door types like Wallace Reid ruled the screen. But Reid's untimely death, and the unexpected popularity of Valentino and The Sheik had every studio in town looking for the next Great Lover. When Valentino left Metro, the studio only had to look in its own back yard, quickly elevating Novarro to star status and hot property. The only one of the new Latin Lovers to actually be of Latin extraction, Novarro quickly became known as Ravishing Ramon. Despite that fact that he was referred to as The Second Valentino and The Third Great Lover, such was his popularity that hawkers did a furious business selling "secret maps" to his "hidden home."

His career continued to build with the success of such films as The Student Prince with Norma Shearer; Where the Pavement Ends ; a carbon copy of the The Sheik titled The Arab (1924); and The Midshipman (1925). But in 1926 he got the role of a lifetime as the lead in Metro's 1926 multi-million dollar production of Ben-Hur .

It wasn't originally meant to be his. Legendary scenarist June Mathis, now of the Goldwyn company, who had obtained rights to the film, decreed that her choice, George Walsh -- brother of director Raoul -- should play the titular role. But terrible cost overruns, mass confusion, and a merger brought the role to Novarro. Despite the disarray surrounding the making of Ben-Hur, Novarro turned in such a bravura performance that for years he continued to receive mail addressed to "Mr. Ben-Hur."

Novarro was one of the lucky few who managed to survive into the talkie era, thanks to his fine singing voice. Shrewdly, for 1929's The Pagan with Dorothy Janis he recorded the popular Pagan Love Song. The studio, meanwhile, gave him roles that suited his accent, and in his first talking picture, Call of the Flesh (1930) Novarro sang and danced the Tango.

His career continued with Daybreak (1931), The Son-Daughter (1932) with Helen Hayes and the 1932 Greta Garbo vehicle Mata Hari (1931), where he uttered the famous line "What is the matter, Mata?" After Mata Hari he continued to appear in a number of musicals, but his popularity began to wane.

He continued to make films throughout the '30s, including The Barbarian (1933) with Myrna Loy, Laughing Boy with Lupe Velez and The Cat and the Fiddle. By 1938 he was reduced to appearing in a low-budget feature, A Desperate Adventure , for Republic Pictures.

Seemingly retired from movies, he made a successful reappearance in 1949 with a role in We Were Strangers with John Garfield and Jennifer Jones, but despite talk of "comeback" he again was reduced to cameos in undistinguished features.

Sadly, whatever reputation Novarro had as a screen idol was obscured by the sensationalism of his death. On Halloween 1968 he was brutally battered by the Ferguson brothers, dying in a pool of blood in his own home, the basis for a thinly veiled short story in Tom Tryon's book Crowned Heads. As one of his obituaries noted, "With all his stage and screen experience, it was ex-star Ramon Novarro's tragedy not to recognize two bad actors when he saw them".