Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Ricardo Montalban RIP

He was the inscrutable Mr. Roarke on Fantasy Island -- in the early days a proxy for the Devil, later on an almost god-like being. But always (as he frequently reminded his friend Tattoo) "...very dangerous."

He was 'Spy Grandpa,' levitating to the rescue of his grand kids in two of the Spy Kids movies.

And of course for years he extolled the "soft corinthian leather" of the Chrysler Cordoba.

But to me he will always be a genetically engineered superman, the refugee from the Eugenics Wars who almost defeated Kirk and took over the USS Enterprise, Khan Noonien Singh.

Ricardo Montalban died this morning at the age of 88.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

in retrospect, i think Dos Equis should have hired Ricardo Montalban to do a few ads for them as their "most interesting man in the world" (he has a Spanish accent too, which fits perfectly)