Cesar Romero

I saw him in Brentwood, California... several times, in fact.  I was always impressed with his astonishing physical appearance.  He was tall, aristocratic, ramrod-straight posture, handsome with a great amount of silver hair and always dressed as though he was doing a photo shoot.  I remember one time watching a young girl shove an autograph book in his face as she said are you a movie star?  He gave her a huge, welcoming smile as he took the book and pen and said well I've done a few movies.

He answered that truthfully.  Cesar Romero was never a star, per se.  One probably couldn't count on two hands the number of times he was top-billed and even then never in a big film.  Many of his roles were as men trying to woo the leading lady away from the leading man.

Never once in his 86 years did he ever publicly say I am gay although Hollywoodites suspected he was.  Conversely, he was not opposed to talking all around it.  He would admit he had gay friends, attended gay parties and loved to dance.  He would say that people often associate gay with men who are dancers.  One of his most revealing comments came later in life when he said I like who I am but I also like the Latin Lover that some people think I am.  How could I continue being him for them if they find out all about me? 

He was born to a Cuban mother and a Spanish father in New York City in 1907.  His mother was a concert singer and his father was an import-export merchant.  Romero would one day joke that if his father's business hadn't gone belly-up, he'd probably be selling nuts and bolts and sugar.

While he was still a teenager he began dancing and would still be doing so into his 80s.  He had two great passions in life... dancing and Tyrone Power.  He spent his late teen and earliest adult years as a ballroom dancer and by all accounts, a very good one.  He then began working on Broadway and had several plays under his belt when he decided to try his luck in the movies.   

His first prominent movie was The Thin Man (1934), the first in the series.  He was both a gigolo and a villain.  It's been said his career might have soared had Marlene Dietrich's The Devil Is a Woman (1935) been a bigger hit but it was not to be.  In 1935 he joined 20th Century Pictures at the time it became 20th Century Fox.  Romero would spend a number of years at the studio.

He hadn't been at the studio for very long before he met Power, on the cusp of becoming the studio's number one star.  They became lovers early on and remained so until Power's untimely death in 1958 at age 45.  They never lived together but they always managed to find time to be together even through Power's three marriages and a couple of famous girlfriends named Judy and Lana.  Both men were discreet although Power more so.  He had much more to lose.

Fox stuck Romero in a couple of Shirley Temple movies (1937's Wee Willie Winkie and 1939's The Little Princess) before he started a gig in seven Cisco Kid movies in the late 30s and early 40s, the first of which he didn't play Cisco.  It wasn't looking too promising.

I suspect Romero's social life was far more important to him than his career.  Most of that involved dancing and being an escort for actresses who also liked to dance and were in between husbands, boyfriends or escorts.  His favorite dancing partner at such glittery establishments as Mocambo, Trocadero and the Cocoanut Grove was Joan Crawford.  They were dear friends and lived near one another for years.  But many others were in his arms including Ann Sheridan, Jane Wyman, Anne Jeffreys, Barbara Stanwyck, Hedy Lamarr, Lupe Velez, Lucille Ball and Ginger Rogers.  They loved dancing with Romero... or Butch as his friends called him.

With his favorite partner, Joan Crawford

At the start of WWII, Romero joined the Coast Guard for a three-year hitch.  In the meantime, he had some Fox musicals that were scheduled for release.  Most of them costarred Betty Grable, Carmen Miranda or ice skater Sonja Henie.

Weekend in Havana (1941) stars Alice Faye and John Payne with Romero as a comic foil for Miranda.  In Orchestra Wives (1942) he has a small role as a member of Glenn Miller's band.

Fox was always energized for another one of its colorful, cornball musicals.  Don't get me wrong... oh no, no. no, I missed damned few of them.  They seemed to be always populated with the same dozen or so actors.  They're lovers in one movie and siblings in the next.  You could count on pretty blonde singer-dancers, handsome leading men, good comedic character actors and if Fox was going all out, a famous orchestra.  You could also count on not remembering much of the plot two days later.

A perfect partner for Carmen Miranda

That leads us to Springtime in the Rockies (1943).  Think of that title and what it could possibly mean in plot.  Something original... oh I'm sure.  However, joining a charmingly funny Romero are Grable, shaking her maracas as never before, Miranda and her goochie-goochie, fruity hats, handsome John Payne, limber Charlotte Greenwood, timid Edward Everett Horton and Jackie Gleason (what?!?!) and in its debut flick, the Harry James Orchestra.  Great time.

George Montgomery stands in for Payne but Grable is back with Romero as the third in a triangle musical opus, Coney Island (1943), about two business and love rivals on that famous entertainment venue.  Its honky-tonk appeal was very evident back in the day.  I still like it.  The boys had some fun rivalry and Romero was by now very good in the role of the second guy in musical-comedies.  This is how I have always remembered him although I love a couple of the of the dramas he would be tackling.

In 1945, Romero and Power embarked on a three-month, 22,000-mile goodwill tour through Latin America.  Fox was behind it all.  Romero would serve as an interpreter and a lot more. Three other men were going along but the two pals would room together at all stops.  Romero would remember the trip as one of the happiest times of his life.  

Roughing it with Ty Power

I expect most people who might critique the actor's work would say his best was Captain from Castile (1947) and I would agree.  It is Fox's version of the true story of a 16th century Spanish officer who goes off to try his luck in the Americas and becomes involved with explorer Hernando Cortez (Romero) and his conquering of Mexico.

Fox was bringing in all its heavy artillery for this film.  They wanted the swashbuckling adventure to be big business and it was.  Along with the film's many virtues, it introduced beautiful Jean Peters to the movies, which I considered a very good thing.  Romero considered it a very good thing that Power had the lead.  They would be off to Mexico for several months and share a home while there.  He was happy he could just be plain ol' Butch again.

He enjoyed a good comedy role in the 1948 Greer Garson-Walter Pidgeon opus, Julia Misbehaves, playing a wacky acrobat.  After a couple of more lesser pictures, he left Fox and he would never again know the kind of successful career he had at the studio.  Despite working through 1998, it was usually in television although there were several mainly undistinguished movies.

In 1953 he signed up for his own television series, Passport to Danger.  It was an espionage drama that lasted for 39 episodes and due to some fancy financial arrangements it made Romero rich.  In the mid-50s he made two films that I enjoyed.  In both he played a villain with such a juicy frenzy that I've wondered why he didn't do more.

Vera Cruz (1954) is a rollicking, entertaining western about a group of squabbling mercenaries hired to escort a stagecoach with a countess inside through the wilds of Mexico to the port of Vera Cruz.  What they don't know at first is that beneath the seat in the coach is three million dollars worth of American gold.  Romero helps them on the journey until he reveals his true colors.  Burt Lancaster and Gary Cooper are the stars.

The Americano (1955) is not as good as the former but has some merit because it's a Brazilian western.  Glenn Ford works on Frank Lovejoy's ranch as they both battle bandits headed by Romero.

When in 1958 he heard that Tyrone Power had died of a heart attack while filming a sword fight for Solomon and Sheba in Spain, he was inconsolable.  Although after a while dressing up and heading out into the warm California nights with his ladies and dancing til dawn helped with the grief he would never love like this again.

In the 60s he had roles in such films as Ocean's 11, If a Man Answers, Donovan's Reef, A House Is Not a Home, Two on a Guillotine and Marriage on the Rocks but the attention went to other actors.  He filled much of his time doing guest shots on TV series.

In the mid-60s he played The Joker for two years on TV's Batman and gained a whole new and younger audience.  He was forever surprised at the attention and didn't have a lot of regard for the silly series.  For the 70s and 80s it was almost exclusively television.  In the mid-80s, he appeared with one of his dancing partners, Jane Wyman, in the popular nighttime soaper, Falcon Crest.  He was her husband and gained another new audience.

In addition to his show business career he had owned a restaurant and a men's clothing store.  He said that he owned around 300 suits.

Throughout all these last 30 years not much changed for him socially.  After the famous Hollywood night spots closed down, Romero and his famous actresses still tripped the light fantastic at newer clubs.  There were always the photos, too, for the dapper Romero and his still-beautiful dates.  Not much changed either as he grew older.  He enjoyed attending any event commemorating Old Hollywood but there were those art gallery openings, fashion shows or as a date for some actress who was being honored.  A friend of his once said Cesar Romero would attend the opening of a napkin.

I find no fault in this.  He was a fine actor but the doors never really swung open for him.  By and large, I don't think he minded.  I know he had a sense of humor about it all and was always self-deprecating, charming and funny.  I thought of him more as a citizen of Hollywood, an unofficial mayor, a symbol of old Hollywood when being seen in public without being in one's finest finery was unthinkable.  He was a raconteur.  I suspect he knew all the secrets... he got them from and shared them with all his ladies.  The girls all loved to dish.

Vanity was important to him but not in some inglorious way.  He was brought up in a time when looking good in public meant something.  And with a nod to genetics, he did it well. Being a gentleman, exhibiting manners, having a generous soul, smiling were a few of his hallmarks.  Each time I saw him all those many years ago, it was in a gathering of people, all going about their business.  But he stood out as though a light was atop his stylish head.  Mighty impressive.

I would advise any secretly gay person to come out.  I've always concluded the benefits of coming out far outweigh the punishment of staying in.  I'm not pleased that some times I have been a little prickly, shall we say, in my attitude about those in the closet but I know I would have given ol' Butch a pass.  Of course, in his earlier life it would have been unthinkable to come out, at least if you wanted or needed to work.  So, of course, I am thinking of once his career had faded and attitudes on being gay had changed.  But oh so what?  He openly played bingo all his life without ever shouting out bingo.  I can't see that it ever made a difference.   He was clearly one happy character who knew how to have a good time and to aid his friends in doing the same.

He made movies for 65 years and that speaks to me.  Elegance diminished a little when the old gentlemen drew his last breath, a month short of his 87th birthday in Santa Monica in 1994 due to complications from a blood clot.

Next posting:

the finale of gay month:

one more movie and a most

unusual one