Cesar Romero
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List of Batman 1966 TV Villains
Cesar Julio Romero, Jr. (February 15, 1907 – January 1, 1994) was a Cuban American film and television actor, best known for his portrayal of The Joker in the television series Batman.
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Biography
Early life
Romero was born in New York to well-off Cuban parents. However, that lifestyle would change dramatically when his parents lost their sugar import business and suffered losses in the Stock Market Crash of 1929. Fortunately, Romero's Hollywood earnings allowed him to support his large family, all of whom followed him to the West Coast, years later. Romero lived on and off with various family members, especially his sister, for the rest of his life.
Romero served admirably in various capacities in the United States Coast Guard in the Pacific for several years during World War II, with fellow Hollywood actors, Gig Young and Richard Cromwell.
Career
Romero played "Latin lovers" in films from the 1930s until the 1950s, usually in supporting roles. Initially, he attracted attention in Hollywood when he starred as Cisco Kid in six westerns made between 1939 and 1941. Romero's skill at both dancing and comedy can be seen in the classic 20th Century Fox films he starred in opposite Carmen Miranda and Betty Grable, such as Week-End in Havana and Springtime in the Rockies, in the 1940s.
As well as being an accomplished ballroom dancer, Romero was also a fine dramatic actor, as he demonstrated in The Thin Man (1934), in which he played a villainous supporting role opposite the film's main star William Powell. Many of Romero's films from this early period saw him cast in small character parts, such as Italian gangsters and East Indian princes. He also appeared in a fine comic turn as a subversive opponent to Frank Sinatra and his crew in Ocean's Eleven.
20th Century Fox, and mogul, Darryl Zanuck personally selected Romero to co-star with Tyrone Power in the Technicolor historical epic, Captain from Castile (1947), directed by Henry King. While Power played a fictionalized character, Romero played Hernan Cortez, the most famous Conquistador in Spain's conquest of the Americas. The movie is set in 1519, and sets out the general account of the first stages in the conquest of the Aztecs in Mexico. This film was meant as the vehicle to restart Tyrone Power's career, though many feel that Romero's career benefited more from it. It was produced on a scale that would not be eclipsed as a visual epic, until years later when the cinema brought on Quo Vadis, The Robe, The Ten Commandments, Ben Hur or even later, Lawrence of Arabia. Romero was able to maintain the aura of "major stardom" for at least 10 years after this major role. The film was widely seen, and influenced the future depiction of Spanish Conquistadors. The film anachronistically depicted the armor and headgear worn by the conquering Spanish adventurers, shifting the styles forward about 70 years. Countless monuments, logos, commercial art, and text books over the years have copied this mistake.
Television
In 1965, Romero played the head of THRUSH in France in The Man from U.N.C.L.E.: ("The Never Never Affair").
In 1966, Romero again achieved icon status when he played The Joker in ABC's television series, Batman. He refused to shave his trademark mustache and so it was covered with white makeup when playing the supervillain throughout the series' run, and in the spinoff 1966 film.
In the 1970s, Romero portrayed the absent father of the Freddie Prinze character Chico Rodriguez in Chico and the Man, and later as Peter Stavros in the television series Falcon Crest (1985-1987). Among Romero's guest star work in the 1970s was a recurring role on the western comedy Alias Smith and Jones, starring Pete Duel and Ben Murphy. Romero played Señor Armendariz, a Mexican rancher feuding with Patrick McCreedy (Burl Ives), the owner of a ranch on the opposite side of the border. He appeared in three episodes. He also appeared as Count Dracula on Rod Serling's Night Gallery.
Apart from these television roles, Romero's most notable work in film in this period is as A. J. Arno, a small time criminal who continually opposes Dexter Riley (played by Kurt Russell) and his schoolmates of Medfield College in a series of films by Walt Disney Productions in the 1970s.
In the Simpsons episode "Hungry, Hungry Homer", the ghost of Cesar Chavez appears as Cesar Romero because Homer doesn't know what Cesar Chavez looks like.
In 2008, comedian Shaun Micallef started doing impersonations of Cesar on his television show Newstopia. The impersonations featured Cesar doing fake news reports from various locations.