Montalbaaaaaaaaaaannnnnn!

He was on every television show ever made and always found a way to make a good impression, regardless of the material. Mark Evanier has a nice anecdote about working with Montalban.

Also, the Archive of American Television interview with Montalban is available in five parts on YouTube (conducted in 2002). You can sometimes see that he’s in pain due to his spinal cord injury, but he is, as always, gracious and smart and charming. The interview includes an anecdote about why The Colbys, the infamous Dynasty spinoff with Charlton Heston, Montalban, Barbara Stanwyck, Katharine Ross et al, only lasted two seasons despite the high budget and expensive cast, and why Stanwyck quit after one year. Though as he notes, it was actually a big hit in Europe.

Barbara was my idol. Wonderful actress. Oh, I admired Barbara so much. I asked: “Will I be able to have some scenes with Miss Stanwyck?” “Of course!” … One scene in one year.

She [Stanwyck] said “Ricardo, I want to quit. I’m not going to do another season, because what I’m doing here is…” I’m going to use a different expression — “crap,” but it was a worse word than “crap.” She said “I don’t mind doing good crap, but this is bad crap. I do the same crap every single show.”

And so did I. I would say to the girl “Oh, listen to me, if you say no to me, I will leave.” And then I’d never leave, and the next week I would come back: “Oh, please, I want to be with you.” The same scene over and over.

BTW, I’m no fan of Bill Conti’s music (I think he came up with one good theme, the Rocky theme, and has been coasting on that for the rest of his career), and his theme for The Colbys, which sounds like a bad knockoff of Superman, is even worse than his very dull theme for Dynasty. It really makes you appreciate Jerold Immel and his great themes for Dallas and Knots Landing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_roemzd-So