Rex Ingram in 'The Thief of Bagdad' 1940 with tiny Sabu. Actor Rex Ingram movies on TCM: Early black film performer in 'Cabin in the Sky,' 'Anna Lucasta' It's somewhat unusual for two well-known film celebrities, whether past or present, to share the same name.[1] One such rarity is – […]

Ramon Novarro. Ramon Novarro: Mexican-born actor was first Latin American Hollywood superstar Mexican-born actor Ramon Novarro, the original Ben-Hur and one of MGM's biggest stars of the late '20s and early '30s, has his Turner Classic Movies' “Summer Under the Stars” day on Thursday, Aug. 8. First, The Bad News: […]

Rex Ingram. St. Patrick's Day always reminds me of silent era filmmaker Rex Ingram, among whose silent era efforts are The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, The Prisoner of Zenda, Scaramouche, Mare Nostrum, The Magician, and The Garden of Allah, and whose birth – as Reginald Ingram Montgomery Hitchcock – […]

Tender Is the Night with Jennifer Jones. Henry King's 1962 movie adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's 1934 novel – screenplay by Ivan Moffat – starred Best Actress Oscar winner Jennifer Jones (The Song of Bernadette, 1943) in what turned out to be her final star vehicle and the veteran director's […]

Alice Terry, Ramon Novarro in Rex Ingram's Scaramouche Ramon Novarro is back for the fourth and last installment of Turner Classic Movies' Sunday evening celebration of the 100 years of the Mexican Revolution. Tonight, Novarro's vehicle is Scaramouche (1923), one of his most prestigious critical and box office hits, and […]

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse with Rudolph Valentino (left) and then-extra Ramon Novarro (right). Rose Dione is seen holding the French tricolor in Rex Ingram's 1921 blockbuster. Directed by Rex Ingram, and starring Rudolph Valentino and Alice Terry, the silent era blockbuster The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse will […]

Jeanette MacDonald, Ramon Novarro, The Cat and the Fiddle Beyond Paradise: The Life of Ramon Novarro is a film star biography I wrote several years ago. The book tells the story of the first Latin American performer to become a major Hollywood star, Ramon Novarro. Beyond Paradise: The Life of […]

June Mathis / © Allan Ellenberger Collection June Mathis. The name means nothing to most of today's filmgoers and to the vast majority of self-proclaimed film historians. Yet, nearly nine decades ago June Mathis was, next to Mary Pickford, one of the two most powerful women in Hollywood. “She fairly […]

Gay actor Ramon Novarro and Greta Garbo in 'Mata Hari.' Ramon Novarro biography: 'Beyond Paradise' The tragic story of gay actor Ramon Novarro, the first Latin American Hollywood star, is told in Beyond Paradise: The Life of Ramon Novarro. A top Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (and previously Metro Pictures) contract player from the […]