Cesar Romero: 1907-1994: Dancer, Actor Biography - Danced His Way Into Show Business, From Dinner Club To The Stage, Made Screen Debut
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Cesar Romero: 1907-1994: Dancer, actor.
Cesar Romero's career on stage, screen, and film spanned more than 60 years and included over 100 movies, as well as an array of stage and television appearances. Romero was well-known for his two-year stint in the 1960s as the sinister Joker on the television show Batman, but his heyday was as a studio actor for Twentieth Century-Fox during the 1930s and 1940s. Often acting the role of the playboy, the other man, and the "Latin lover," Romero seldom achieved the full status of a leading man. Nonetheless, his charm, debonair good looks, and suave style made him a favorite on screen as well as among his peers.
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Cesar Romero was born on February 15, 1907, in New York City. His Italian-born father, Cesar Julio Romero, was an exporter of sugar and machinery, and his mother, Maria Mantilla, was a modestly successful singer and concert pianist. They had emigrated from Cuba to the United States, where Romero and his three siblings were raised. His maternal grandfather, the well-known Cuban patriot and writer J…
Although Romero and Higgins never achieved true celebrity status for their dance routines, their performance merited billing at New York's finest dinner clubs, including Club Richman, the St. Regis Roof, the Ambassador Roof, and the Montmartre Café. As he did in his youth, Romero relied on his charming good looks and Latin-lover appeal to begin hob-nobbing with the theater elite. He …
Romero made his screen debut in 1933 in an unnoticed, low-budget film, The Shadow Laughs. After an impressive screen test for MGM, the production company signed Romero to a bit part in the 1934 hit film, The Thin Man. During the early days of film, actors were hired by a production company and worked on movies solely under the studio's label. However, MGM loaned Romero to Universal Studios …
Romero and Universal disagreed over Romero's desire for a raise, and in 1937 Romero left the studio to join Twentieth Century, which was in the process of merging with Fox. He stayed with Twentieth Century-Fox for 15 years, making close to five movies a year. Romero later remembered his days as a studio actor with fondness. "It used to be one big family, this industry," he tol…
Of his hundreds of appearances on stage, screen, and film, Romero is most recognized among Baby Boomers for his two-year stint in 1966-67 as Batman's maniacal archenemy, the Joker, on the popular Batman television series starring Adam West and Burt Ward. He also played the part of Joker in the 1966 feature film Batman. Given the whole of Romero's career, during which he most often fi…
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