Hollywood & Crime: The Life and Death of Ramon Novarro, Hollywood’s First True Latin Lover

Most of Hollywood's most popular Latin Lovers were not actually Latino. The trope of the swarthy seducer of "exotic" stock who left women swooning in his wake originated in the silent era with Rudolph Valentino. He was Italian, but his dark hair and olive skin read as more racially ambiguous in black-and-white cinematography, so he ended up playing a lot of Latino hunks and problematic sheiks. Other beloved actors to embody the type included Charles Boyer (French), Conrad Veidt (British-German), Tony Curtis (Hungarian-American), and Al Pacino (Italian-American.) There have been some actually Latino men cast in these roles, but Hollywood racism and a fundamental misunderstanding of Latino identity meant we got a lot of Antonio Banderas in the '90s. The first major true Hollywood Latin Lover was a Mexican star who became one of the biggest box office stars of the 1920s. His murder became a much-mythologised event that exposed another kind of industry bigotry: homophobia.

Ramón Gil Samaniego was born in Durango City, Mexico, in 1899. His family was well-respected in the region, and he grew up on a large estate as one of 13 kids. They emigrated to America to escape the Mexican Revolution and settled in Los Angeles. Eager to break into entertainment, Ramon took odd jobs, including as a singing waiter and dancer, in between sporadic uncredited film parts. In 1922, he was cast as Rupert of Hentzau, a villainous henchman, in Rex Ingram’s silent adventure flick The Prisoner of Zenda. Ingram was a very big deal in Hollywood at the time. Erich von Stroheim once declared him to be "the world’s greatest director.” He had worked with Rudolph Valentino on a number of movies and saw similar potential in Ramon. He suggested that Ramon change his surname to Novarro and to focus more seriously on acting. Ingram cast him in his first major movie hit, 1923's swashbuckling Scaramouche.

Two years later came Ben-Hur, an epic that made him a bona fide star. He was not the first choice for the title role. It was meant to go to George Walsh. Indeed, he shot almost the entire movie before being replaced, along with the director and several key figures on- and off-screen. It led to a massively inflated budget and tons of technical difficulties. A total of 200,000 feet was shot for the chariot racing scene alone. But it paid off, kind-of, as Ben-Hur was a massive hit but not enough to balance the books.

Novarro was a pre-Code sex symbol, a hot lover in short outfits that left little to the imagination. Women were obsessed with him, much in the same way they were with Valentino. The Latin Lover stereotype was a problematic one that relied a lot on racism and a kind of no-homo aura of femininity that a lot of men hated. Novarro wasn't seen as especially "manly" by other dudes, but, like Valentino, that was what made him so alluring to his female fans. He seemed like someone who knew what he was doing. Shock horror, a lot of women enjoy guys who don’t seem to hate being around women.