According to the U.S. Census Bureau, there are an estimated 41.3 million Latinos in the United States. By that estimate, this means that approximately one out of every seven people in the U.S. is Latino. In fact, the growth of Latinos is so profound that, by 2038, they will become the majority in California.
Unfortunately, Hollywood would interpret these figures by increasing the number of film roles to Anglos while subjecting Latinos to an increased dosage of some popular reality show, maybe called "The Invisible People."
While there is concern about the dearth of roles today and certainly in the future, there was once a time in American cinema when Latinos dominated. The motion picture industry secured a living for many Latinos with the creation of these jobs and other opportunities.
The history of Latinos in American cinema started with extras and bit parts in silent films in the late teens and early 1920's. However, it would not be long before some would make it to the forefront, such as Myrtle Gonzales and Beatriz Michelena.
Gonzales became the "first Latina star," when in 1911, she appeared in the short film Ghosts. Until her death from influenza in 1917, Gonzales appeared in more than forty films. Michelena, an established stage actress from the San Francisco Bay area, made her film debut Salomy Jane in 1914 and went on to appear in sixteen other films.
What made their accomplishments even more impressive is that they did not disguise their ethnic identity by using their own surnames. There was a period in Hollywood where a having Latino surname actually became a detriment from getting employment.
In the early '20s, Rudolph Valentino made being Latino chic with his personification of the "Latin Lover," opening the door to many Latino male leads, such as Gilbert Roland and Ramon Novarro.
Roland, born Luis Antonio Damaso Alonso in Juarez, Mexico became a Hollywood legend by appearing in more 110 films spanning over six decades. Some notables include New York Nights (1929) Treasure of Pancho Villa (1950), Thunder Bay (1953) and Cheyenne Autumn (1964).
Ramon Novarro made audiences swoon when he romanced Greta Garbo in the 1931 film Mati Hari. Novarro also appeared in the classic 1926 version of Ben-Hur, as well as We Were Strangers (1949) and The Big Steal (1949). The commercial allure of the Latin Lover was so strong in Hollywood that Jacob Krantz, an Austrian Jew, even changed his own ethnic name to the then-preferable "Ricardo Cortez."
But, despite the notoriety of a few, most Latino actors and actresses were limited to "bandido and greaser" type roles. Like other ethnic groups in Hollywood, skin complexion played an instrumental role in job opportunities. Juano Hernandez, a dark-complexioned Puerto Rican, made his mark by portraying African-American characters. His deep, reverberating voice was utilized effectively in films like Intruder in the Dust (1949), St. Louis Blues (1958) and his critically praised performance as an aging jazz musician in Young Man with a Horn (1950).
While many African-Americans were subject to mostly stereotypical domestics and buffoon types, Latinos didn't fare much better, often depicting bandits, vagrants, wranglers, or laborers in an endless supply of Westerns. Latinas were generally regulated to either the virginal senorita or the loose spitfire. On occasion, an inspirational and somewhat empowering character, such as the one portrayed by Katy Jurado in 1952's High Noon (starring Gary Cooper) would transcend the stereotypes.
The diverse ethnic appearance of Mexicans, such as Jurado and Anthony Quinn enabled Latinos to portray other ethnicities such as Arabs, Jews, Asians, and Native Americans. Two years after the release of High Noon, Jurado was nominated for an Academy Award as Best Supporting Actress for her role as a Native American woman in Broken Lance (1954), opposite Spencer Tracy.
Lupe Velez, also known as the "Mexican Spitfire," graced the pages of the gossip columns just as much as she graced the silver screen.
Delores Del Rio, one of the most accomplished Latinas in the history of Hollywood, was discovered at 21 by a director looking for the female equivalent of the Latin Lover. She was able to exceed the stereotypical Latina with her exceptional talent and become one the most financially successful and respected actresses in Hollywood through her illustrious career that spanned more than five decades.
While Velez and Del Rio were able to find success while maintaining their ethnic identity, Margarita Carmen Cansino did not. After appearing in nearly a dozen films that displayed her dancing talents with minimal success, Ms. Casino began her transformation to the American standard of beauty by dying her hair red, changing her name, and undergoing a series of electrolysis which minimized her ethnic features. As a result, in 1937, Margarita Carmen Cansino became Rita Hayworth, a woman who would become the Love-Goddess of the 1940's that would change Hollywood forever.
In an effort to reach the increasing Latin-American market, Hollywood produced more than 110 Spanish-language films between 1930 and 1938. Unfortunately due to a number of linguistic and dialect problems these films generally did not win over Latino audiences in the United States or abroad.
Hollywood continued to finance a limited number of Spanish-language films but musicals became the genre of choice, such as Down Argentine Way (1940), which introduced Carmen Miranda, "the Brazilian Bombshell," to American audiences. However, most films that featured Latinos were typically unpretentious stories that placed an American in a Latin-flavored location (actually a Hollywood set, of course) amassed with comedy situations (usually of the "fish-out-of-water" variety) and lavish musical numbers.
By the end of World War II the number of roles for Latinos and Latino-themed films declined, but the pool of talented Latinos and their accomplishments did not. In 1950, Jose Ferrer became the first Latino to win an Academy Award for Best Actor for his starring role in Cyrano De Bergerac. Rosita Dolores Alverio, better known as Rita Moreno, would become the first Latina to win an Academy Award in 1961 for her supporting role in the film West Side Story.
Twenty-eight years would pass before another Latino, Edward James Olmos in Stand and Deliver (1989), would be nominated for an Academy Award for acting. It wasn't until the year 2000 that another Latino would win, when Bencio Del Toro took home Best Supporting Actor for his role in Traffic (2000).
In all, eight Latinos were nominated for Academy Awards. While the number of Latinos in cinema today leave a lot be desired, one can take solace that history tells a different story, one that is satisfying, diverse and rich.
For anyone who appreciates American cinema, it's about time we started acknowledging the past, because it is certain to shape our future.
Damon Davis is a pop culture critic and can be reached at hollywoodwatchdawg@hotmail.com
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