Antonio Moreno

Antonio Moreno
Born	Antonio Garrido Monteagudo September 26, 1887(1887-09-26) Madrid, Spain
Died	February 15, 1967 (aged 79) Beverly Hills, California, U.S.
Spouse(s)	Daisy Canfield Danziger (1923-1933)

Antonio "Tony" Moreno (September 26, 1887 - February 15, 1967) was a notable actor and film director of the silent film era and through the 1950s.

Biography

Born Antonio Garrido Monteagudo in Madrid, Spain, he emigrated to the United States at the age of fourteen and settled in Massachusetts, where he completed his education. After attending the Williston Seminary in Northampton, Massachusetts, he became a stage actor in regional theater productions. In 1912, he moved to Hollywood, California and he was signed to Vitagraph Studios and began his career in bit parts and as a movie extra.

In 1914, Moreno began co-starring in a series of highly successful serials opposite the enormously publicly popular silent film actress Pearl White. These appearances helped to increase Moreno's popularity with the nation's nascent film-goers. By 1915, Antonio Moreno was a highly regarded matinee idol and appearing opposite such successful actors as Tyrone Power, Sr., Gloria Swanson, Blanche Sweet, Pola Negri and Dorothy Gish. Moreno was often typecast in his earliest films as the "Latin Lover", as were other actors of the era with Latin roots, such as Ramón Novarro and Rudolf Valentino.

By the early 1920s, Antonio Moreno joined film mogul Jesse Lasky's Famous Players and became one of the company's most highly paid performers. In 1926 Moreno starred opposite Swedish acting legend Greta Garbo in The Temptress and the following year followed up with a starring role in the enormous box-office hit Clara Bow vehicle It.

Moreno married American heiress Daisy Canfield Danziger, in 1923, and the couple moved to an estate known as Crestmount, now known as the Canfield-Moreno Estate. The union lasted ten years and ended shortly before Canfield Danziger was killed in an automobile accident.

With the advent of talkies in the late 1920s and early 1930s, Moreno's career began to falter, in part because of his heavy Spanish accent. While still acting in English language films, Moreno also began taking parts in Mexican films. During the early 1930s, Moreno directed several well-received Mexican films, among them is the 1932 drama Santa, which has been hailed by film critics as one of the best Mexican films of the era. By the mid-1930s, Antonio Moreno began rebuilding his faltering Hollywood career by taking notable roles as a character actor. By the mid-1940s and throughout the 1950s, Moreno appeared in a number of well received roles, most notably, his 1954 role in the classic horror film Creature from the Black Lagoon and his 1955 role as Emilio Figueroa in film director John Ford's influential western epic The Searchers opposite John Wayne and Natalie Wood.

Moreno retired from film in the late 1950s and died of heart failure in Beverly Hills, California, in 1967, and was laid to rest in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park cemetery in Glendale, California. His film career spanned more than four decades.

In 1994, the Mexican magazine Somos published their list of "The 100 best movies of the cinema of Mexico" in its 100th edition and named the 1931 Moreno directed Santa its 67th choice.

For his contribution to the motion picture industry, Antonio Moreno was given a star on the legendary Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6651 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood, California, USA.

Of note is that Moreno was the half-brother of Alfred Moreno Monteagudo, who took over management of the Los Angeles Biltmore Hotel in the 1940s. Antonio Moreno is the granduncle of horror/fantasy author Nicholas Grabowsky, to which a related biography is slated for late 2009/early 2010 in conjunction with the release of the Creature From the Black Lagoon remake by Universal Pictures.

References

• The First Male Stars: Men of the Silent Era by David W. Menefee. Albany: Bear Manor Media, 2007.

• Antonio Moreno. By DeWitt Bodeen in Films in Review, June-July, 1967.

• Antonio Moreno. The Clearfield Progress, August 26, 1920, page 15.

• Antonio Moreno of the Vitagraph Players. By Violet Virginia in Motion Picture Magazine, December 1914. Pages 103-105.

• Antonio Moreno, Silent-Film Star. The New York Times, February 16, 1967.

• Public Pleased by Vitagraph’s Move to Return Antonio Moreno to Feature Films. Moving Picture World. New York: Chalmers Publishing Company. December 25, 1920.

Silent Filmography

External links

• Antonio Moreno at the Internet Movie Database
• Antonio Moreno at Silents Are Golden
• Some contemporary articles and interviews with Antonio Moreno
• Photographs and literature