Ricardo Cortez

Ricardo Cortez, born Jacob Kranze on September 19, 1900 in New York City to Jewish parents Sarah Lefkovitz and Morris Kranze, was an early‑twentieth‑century Hollywood chameleon whose career spanned over four decades. He attended DeWitt Clinton High School and briefly worked as an amateur boxer and a Wall Street runner before being lured to the burgeoning film industry. Hollywood executives, eager to market his striking, Latin‑inspired looks, rechristened him “Cortez” to evoke the exotic allure of Valentino and Novarro, even fabricating a Viennese backstory when the truth threatened to surface. Though the publicity machinery tried to pass him off as French, Cortez’s real heritage remained New York‑born, a fact that never hindered his ascent to stardom. He made his screen debut in 1917, and over the next two decades appeared in more than one hundred films, transitioning smoothly from silent‑era romantic leads to the hard‑boiled gangsters and detectives that defined the early sound era. Notably, he was the first actor to embody Sam Spade in the 1931 pre‑Code version of The Maltese Falcon, a role later immortalized by Humphrey Bogart. His versatility earned him roles opposite Joan Crawford, Bette Davis, and Al Jolson, and he even stepped into the shoes of Perry Mason for The Case of the Black Cat (1936).

Beyond acting, Cortez turned his creative eye to directing, helming seven low‑budget “program pictures” for 20th Century Fox between 1938 and 1940, including Inside Story and City of Chance. He married silent‑film star Alma Rubens in 1926, later wed Christine Conniff Lee in 1934, and finally tied the knot with Margaret Belle in 1950; none of these unions produced children. After retiring from the screen in the late 1950s, Cortez returned to his financial roots, working as a stockbroker on Wall Street for Salomon Brothers. He passed away on April 28 1977 at Doctors Hospital in New York City, and was interred at Woodlawn Cemetery. His legacy endures, marked by a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1500 Vine Street, a testament to a career that blended charisma, adaptability, and enduring Hollywood myth‑making.