LOS ANGELES — Ricardo Montalban, the Mexican-born actor who became a star in splashy MGM musicals and later as the wish-fulfilling Mr. Roarke in TV’s “Fantasy Island,” died Wednesday morning at his home, a city councilman said. He was 88.
Montalban’s death was announced at a city council meeting by president Eric Garcetti, who represents the district where the actor lived. Garcetti did not give a cause of death.
“What you saw, on the screen and on television and on talk shows, this very courtly, modest, dignified individual, that’s exactly who he was,” said Montalban’s longtime friend and publicist David Brokaw.
Montalban had been a star in Mexican movies when MGM brought him to Hollywood in 1946. He was cast in the leading role opposite Esther Williams in “Fiesta” and starred again with the swimming beauty in “On an Island With You” and “Neptune’s Daughter.”
But Montalban was best known as the faintly mysterious, white-suited Mr. Roarke, who presided over a tropical island resort where visitors were able to fulfill their lifelong dreams — usually at the unexpected expense of a difficult life lesson. The show ran from 1978 to 1984.
More recently, he appeared as villains in two hits of the 1980s: “Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan” and the farcical “The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad.”
Montalban also was active in the theater. He starred on Broadway in the 1957 musical “Jamaica” opposite Lena Horne, picking up a Tony nomination for best actor in a musical.
In 1970, Montalban organized fellow Latino actors into Nosotros (“We”) and became its first president. Their aim: to improve the image of Spanish-speaking Americans on the screen, to assure that Latino actors were not discriminated against and to stimulate Latino actors to study their profession.
Montalban commented in a 1970 interview: “The Spanish-speaking American boy sees Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid wipe out a regiment of Bolivian soldiers. He sees ‘The Wild Bunch’ annihilate the Mexican army. It’s only natural for him to say, ‘Gee, I wish I were an Anglo.’ ”
Montalban was no stranger to prejudice. He was born Nov. 25, 1920, in Mexico City, the son of parents who had emigrated from Spain. He was brought up to speak the Castilian Spanish of his forebears. To Mexican ears, that sounded strange and effeminate, and young Ricardo was jeered at by schoolmates.
“It is not easy to grow up in a country that has different customs from your own family’s,” he wrote in his 1980 autobiography, “Reflections: A Life in Two Worlds.”
In 1944, Montalban married Georgiana Young, actress and model and younger sister of actress Loretta Young. Both Roman Catholics, they remained one of Hollywood’s most devoted couples. They had four children; she died in 2007.
