Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Ricardo Montalban, RIP


I became a big fan of Ricardo Montalban while watching Fantasy Island repeats on Comcast last year. The show could be kind of cheesy, but Montalban, (above left with Herve Villechaize) who played his role - Mister Rourke - as a kind of sinister demigod, always raised the level of quality whenever he was onscreen.

I even considered writing a fan letter after watching him in Escape from the Planet of the Apes, where he uttered the immortal line: "You're asking me to risk imprisonment for the sake of two fugitive apes? The answer is- a thousand times- YES!..."

In retrospect, I kind of wish I'd written him - he died today at age 88.

Montalban was good in a lot of things - Star Trek (the series and the movie he was in), a handful of TV shows, movies, and even (perhaps especially) The Naked Gun.