Hollywood Unmasked: Latin Lover is Kosher Butcher’s Son

Ricardo Cortez (1899-1977) was a handsome and talented leading man whose image, in the silent era, was that of a hot-blooded Latin lover.

In truth, his name was Jacob Krantz, the son of a kosher butcher, born and raised in the mean streets of New York’s Lower East Side.

Cortez worked as a runner on Wall Street while training to be an actor at night.  Soon his good looks afforded him an opportunity to break into the young but flourishing movie business. Paramount groomed the tall and handsome Cortez by giving him bit parts, and then moving him up to more substantial roles.

One of the more interesting glimpses into Cortez’s career and character comes from a 1965 interview Cortez granted to silent film historian Kevin Brownlow, published in The Parade’s Gone By. Brownlow was seeking information regarding director D.W. Griffith. Cortez had starred in Griffith’s The Sorrows of Satan (1926).

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Tags: Alma Rubens, Bebe Daniels, D.W. Griffith, Greta Garbo, Irene Dunne
Posted Jul 14th 2009 at 6:43 am in Classic Hollywood | 18018226 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/ravrech/2009/07/14/hollywood-unmasked-latin-lover-is-kosher-butchers-son/Hollywood+Unmasked%3A+Latin+Lover+is+Kosher+Butcher%27s+Son+2009-07-14+13%3A43%3A16Robert+J.+Avrech

Extra! Hebrew Hollywood Hottie Risks Life for U.S. Troops

In 1918, Theda Bara  was one of three great stars in Hollywood. Leading in popularity and box office appeal was Mary Pickford. Charlie Chaplin came second. And not far behind these two giants of the silver screen, Theda Bara.

She was the hottest sex symbol to hit the motion picture screen since, well, since the flickers started flickering. Bara was, the Vamp, the sexually insatiable woman, the lethal seductress who sucks the life out of a man, then abandons him, leaving only chaos and destruction in her wake.

This was, of course, a carefully created image.

Theda Bara as Cleopatra, 1917, a lost film.

Theda Bara was, in fact, Theodosia Burr Goodman, (1885-1955) a Jewish woman from Cincinnati who led a quiet and scandal free private life. In fact, she was a bookworm who liked nothing better than to curl up with a cup of tea and devour volume after volume of poetry and art history. She did not drink alcohol, go to night clubs, take drugs, or indulge in wild sexual escapades. She worked hard in the flourishing motion picture industry, saved money, stayed married to one man, director Charles Brabin, and wisely invested her considerable earnings. (more…)

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Tags: hollywood, Jews in Hollywood, patriotism, Silent Movies, Silent Stars
Posted Apr 1st 2009 at 7:49 am in Celebrity News, Entertainment | 8899836 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/ravrech/2009/04/01/extra-hebrew-hollywood-hottie-risks-life-for-us-troops/Extra%21+Hebrew+Hollywood+Hottie+Risks+Life+for+U.S.+Troops2009-04-01+14%3A49%3A24Robert+J.+Avrech