A Latino in Hollywood--Is It All in a Name?

Gary Cervantes did what so many other actors have done.

He changed his name, only his first name, and that for the second time in his 19-year career.

But this Hollywood film and television actor-writer made his change differently from most. He stepped out of character. He went public.

Cervantes paid $1,200 for a full-page advertisement in last Friday’s trade publication Daily Variety to tell casting agents, directors, producers and story editors that the person known as Carlos Cervantes for the past nine years and 100 roles was no more.

It will be Gary Cervantes again. Carlos is no more.

This second generation 38-year-old American with a storied Spanish last name was announcing that he would no longer fit into someone else’s stereotype, caricature or mindless mind set.

No more assumed accents. No more bad-guy looks. No more tamales. No more janitor jobs. No more pinatas. No more, as Cervantes says, “Hispanic Stepin’ Fetchit roles.”

In his “open letter to the industry,” Cervantes told of recently being cast as the co-lead in a home video movie called “Howling VI.”

“I played Sheriff Fuller,” he wrote. “Not Sheriff Gomez. . . . It was a terrific learning experience. For once in my life I didn’t have to speak with an accent . . . so I am saying ‘adios’ to Carlos and hello to Gary again. . . . I am reminded daily by Hollywood that I am Latino, and I am labeled Hispanic out of convenience.

“But I am an American.”

(Signed) Gary Cervantes.

What the advertisement didn’t say was what many Latino actors and writers feel and which Cervantes now speaks openly about: Hollywood rarely gives Latinos a chance to act outside the stereotype or to become involved in major creative development in film and television, this despite the predictions of most social scientists that Latinos will be the “emergent majority” in this state by 1995.

There are no regular network television series scheduled featuring Latinos. And few Hollywood movies involving Latinos have come out since the 1987 “La Bamba.” Disney is making a major feature called “Blood In . . . Blood Out” a story about the Mexican Mafia.

In 1973, while a student at USC, Gary (his given name) Cervantes joined the Screen Actors Guild, determined to act in Hollywood. A graduate of Whittier schools, he seemed closer to a stereotype of another sort: the all-American boy. He was clean-shaven, his hair carefully combed, he dressed mainline.

“I was,” he said, “a Mexican ‘Leave It to Beaver.’ ” But there were few roles for Beaver Cleaver Cervantes. And when he tried for Latino roles, he was told he didn’t look “Mexican enough.”

After years of auditions and frequent disappointments, Cervantes decided that a name change and a character change might help his career. He thought of taking on his mother’s maiden name, Barber, changed from Barbiere when her father immigrated to this country. But becoming Gary Barber would in effect be a rejection of his Latino traditions.

Gary became Carlos. He wanted work. He would play the Latino roles as others saw them. He grew a goatee, practiced his sinister look, stressed the Carlos first name and went after available roles: field hand, hanger-on, gangbanger.

Meanwhile, Cervantes continued to search for stronger roles while working on feature films and TV scripts and bringing up a family in his native Whittier.

During this time he did get one starring role, at Whittier’s Center Theatre, where he played Oscar Madison in “The Odd Couple.” “Someone saw me in that play,” he says, “and I got a film job, playing a Mexican pimp.”

Finally, Cervantes did get a co-starring role as the Anglo Sheriff Fuller in “Howling VI.” This was his chance to play a non-stereotype role, and to play an American character. At one time, however, there was talk of changing the sheriff’s name to Sheriff Rodriquez.

“Why?” Cervantes asked.

There was no answer. The role of Sheriff Fuller remained his.

What remained inside him was the continuing struggle to get a crossover lead and what he had done to himself and others playing all of those stereotype roles.

Cervantes says he has appeared in 50 television shows, 30 feature films and 20 industrial films and commercials, most of which as not always role-model Latinos. And in his files at home and in the offices of TV and film story editors are his many unproduced scripts.

So Gary-Carlos went public. He felt someone had to. What little pressure was coming from Latino organizations wasn’t producing the roles, the residuals or the jobs.

“What is happening to the Hispanic in Hollywood?” he asks. “The truth is, they don’t have to use us. So if the pen is really mightier than the sword, I thought I could get people concerned with the ads.”

Except for some congratulatory telephone calls, no jobs, no appointments have resulted from the open letter.

Maybe he should have known better. Last February, he spent another $1,200 for another Variety full-page ad, this time protesting the lack of Latino actors considered for the role of Zorro in a new film. A Canadian actor got the role.

Nothing changed then.

So Gary Cervantes remains outraged and frustrated at the few non-Latino roles offered Latinos, and the scarcity of Latino writers throughout Hollywood’s offices and for the few opportunities available for Americans like him.

Next: A little-known project that promises to change the scenery for Latino artists in several creative fields.