No world of fantasy for him

WHEN you meet Ricardo Montalban, you half expect to find Mr. Roarke, the mysterious character he played on the long-running TV series “Fantasy Island” (1978-84). The role may have been one-dimensional, but it imbued the veteran Mexican actor with a memorable image -- the gallant host in the crisp white suit who had the power to grant wishes for strangers desperate to change their lives.

So it’s a shock to see Montalban today, immobilized by partial paralysis after three operations for a congenital condition that affects his spine. The 85-year-old struggles with constant pain, wincing occasionally as he shifts his weight in his chair at his home in the Hollywood Hills.

The pain forces him to interrupt his answers now and then, muttering a restrained “ay” in Spanish and politely excusing himself. During the conversation, he constantly lifts his lifeless left leg with both hands in an attempt to relieve his discomfort.

It soon becomes clear, though, that but for the physical limitations he calls “a mechanical thing,” Montalban is still the man we imagine -- virile, courtly, proud and passionate. His hair is thinner, but he remains remarkably handsome. His well-shaped upper body still shows signs of the athleticism that led him to love tennis and allowed him to perform graceful dance numbers in his early MGM movies with stars such as Cyd Charisse.

Montalban occasionally curses his condition under his breath. Not out of self-pity but out of the frustration of being trapped. There’s much he still wants to do. Play tennis again. Do more acting. Take his wife to the theater.

Last year, in a rare public appearance, the actor came out in a wheelchair for the debut of the Ricardo Montalban Theatre, established to carry out his lifelong goal of providing opportunities for Latinos in the entertainment industry. But the spotlights and the smiles of the moment soon faded as growing pains afflicted the fledgling theater, which has yet to produce an original play.

In June, The Times reported that the theater was struggling with unfinished renovations, a deteriorating physical appearance and serious fiscal mismanagement that prompted the state to suspend the nonprofit foundation set up to operate it.

For Montalban, whose tenacity made him a Hollywood survivor over six decades, the theater’s troubles were just another reminder of his powerlessness.

“I wish I could walk. I wish I could run. I wish I could do certain things that need to be done with a new organization,” he says, lightly pounding a clenched fist on his armchair. “It’s frustrating to me that I can’t be out there fighting for it.”

This is the first time Montalban has publicly addressed the challenges facing the Vine Street theater that bears his name. The interview, at his contemporary home in the hills above the theater, revealed a man still committed to his cause and his profession.

Montalban said The Times’ story unfairly gave the impression that the theater was out of business when it’s actually in good financial shape and just needs time to grow.

“I really wasn’t aware of the complete picture of what was happening,” the actor admits. “But I don’t think the complete picture is as bleak as you might think.... It just takes time. This is all new for us.”

Montalban and his supporters feared that reports of the theater’s management troubles would hurt their cause and their fundraising efforts. He was especially upset by the suggestion that the theater was being neglected, calling such descriptions “demeaning.” He blamed the homeless for defacing the exterior.

“Inside, the theater is pristine,” said Montalban, sitting in a spare, dark room in his otherwise sunny, tastefully decorated home. “Outside, it’s disgraceful. Little did we know that street people were going to use the outside as a toilet. That’s really very sad, and I’m really taken aback by the fact that the city does nothing about this.”

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said he didn’t have enough information about conditions around the building to respond. But he praised Montalban’s efforts to create and sustain the theater.

“What a great actor and what a committed human being,” Villaraigosa said. “For years, he’s used his fame for the purpose of developing new talent and providing positive role models for Latinos.”

Managers of the 1,200-seat facility are far from planning a season or even producing its first play. Skeptics say the task of operating a theater this size is just too expensive. Some believe it would be better if the theater were leased to an outside group to stage concerts and other events.

Some agencies have expressed interest, but Montalban rejects the idea.

“No, we have to have control over it,” the actor says. “It’s our theater, thanks to a generous donor, and we want to show him that, yes, we’re able to run it by ourselves.”

Theater brings him full circle

THEATER, Montalban recalled, gave him his start as an actor in the 1940s and rescued his career three decades later when he was briefly blackballed by Hollywood for his activism against stereotypes and lack of opportunity.

After a lifetime of fighting for opportunities for others, however, Montalban finds opportunities fading for himself. His latest film role was as Grandpa Cortez in the last two “Spy Kids” movies, which he played in a wheelchair.

He knows there are other roles out there for him, but he’s had no new offers.

Hollywood may have made progress in overcoming biases, he says, but it’s still a business.

“They say, ‘What are his qualifications? Well, he’s Mexican. Hmmm. Strike one. He’s partially paralyzed. Tsk, tsk. Strike two. He’s a senior citizen. Strike three, you’re out.’ And that’s where I find myself. Hollywood, you see, is not a humanitarian society. Hollywood is dollars and cents.”

Few Latinos know how Hollywood works better than Montalban, who moved here from Mexico as a teenager knowing little English and quickly became a glamorous leading man at MGM. He was one of only a handful of Latino actors who earned success and respect in a movie industry that openly promoted ethnic stereotypes.

When he complained to producers about the portrayal of Mexicans as lazy peons or Latin Lotharios, they explained they simply needed colorful characters. “Yeah, it’s colorful,” he’d respond, “but you’re smearing us with terrible colors.”

Montalban recalls that the studios wanted him to change his name to something less foreign-sounding. (Somebody even suggested the name Ricky Martin.) But Montalban refused, partly because he had already built a reputation as an actor in Latin America and partly because he was simply too proud of his heritage to hide it.

That pride later would spur him to take on stereotypes in other areas, such as the Frito Bandito, star of corn chips ads that couldn’t even spell “bandido” correctly. In 1970, Montalban was named president of a new advocacy group named Nosotros, established to promote a better image and more opportunities for Latinos in the entertainment industry.

Today, Nosotros is one of the oldest and most successful organizations of its kind.

In 1999, Montalban and Jerry Velasco set up a separate foundation to manage the theater, which was purchased from UCLA the following year. Montalban says his role in running the organization is “almost as an observer, actually.” Day-to-day affairs are handled by a five-member board that has acted quickly in recent weeks to address the internal problems -- ordering an audit, updating delinquent financial reports and restructuring responsibilities.

Board member Richard Amador said the task of maintaining the theater’s fiscal records now goes to a new board member, treasurer Margarita Cannon-Martinez, who has experience directing and producing live theater. Velasco remains executive director, focusing on fundraising and outreach to other groups.

The organization is still waiting to have its status as a foundation reinstated, a move that hinges on its filing of the updated reports.

“I’m now satisfied with the progress,” says Amador, the former treasurer elected vice chairman in the recent board reshuffling. “There’s been some challenging moments, but it’s good that it [the restructuring] happened.”

Montalban expressed concern that bad publicity about the theater would be “devastating” to the anonymous donor who gave most of the $2.5 million used to buy and renovate the building, a 1920s landmark once called the Huntington Hartford Theater and more recently known as the James A. Doolittle Theatre. He described the benefactor as a “very wealthy man” who believed in the concept of developing a showcase for Latino talent. (He squelched any speculation that he himself might be the nameless donor: “My pockets are not that deep.”)

The excitement of getting the theater was so dazzling at first, says Montalban, that it blinded him to how difficult it would be to actually produce a full season of original plays, year after year.

“I thought, ‘Oh, we’re getting a theater. Yeah, let’s go!’ ” he recalled. “But no, my God, there’s so much to be done. It’s like the birth of a child, you know, until you discover what an enormous responsibility it is.” Montalban resents any hint that he may have ulterior motives in promoting the theater. Critics always wonder what’s in it for him, he says.

“When you loan your name to any cause, you pay for it,” says Montalban. “You’re putting your reputation right up front and people sometimes don’t treat you with the respect you deserve.... I like to think I have a certain integrity. My father taught me that, you know. I’ve always tried to conduct my life with dignity and honorability, as a husband, as a father, as a Catholic, as a Mexican. And to risk all that, to be sort of either misunderstood or doubted ... that upsets me very much.”

A contentious era

MONTALBAN has taken hits -- even death threats -- for his strong stands in Hollywood.

Soon after Nosotros was founded 35 years ago, a chilling message was scrawled on the front of the organization’s rented Hollywood house: “Montalban Must Die.” The actor was also receiving threatening calls at home.

It was a politically tumultuous era and the Chicano movement was in full swing. Latinos like Montalban -- wealthy and with Spanish ancestry -- were often considered Tio Tacos, or Uncle Toms, by radicals promoting an indigenous, proletariat agenda.

Montalban says he traced the threats to a Chicano organization called Justicia, which was also applying pressure on the entertainment industry. One day, as the actor recalls, he decided to confront the group -- alone.

He drove to Justicia’s headquarters in a small house in El Sereno barrio. He was greeted by the group’s leader, Ray Andrade.

“I said, ‘You know, I am not a very courageous man, so I don’t want to die,’ ” Montalban recalls telling his alleged enemies. “ ‘But at least I would like to know why I’m going to die. Please tell me.’ ”

Montalban suggested the group needed diplomacy as well as “kamikaze” tactics and offered to work together. The actor’s peace offensive worked. He and Andrade -- whom he now calls “a very nice fellow” -- became friends.

Andrade remembers his meeting with Montalban somewhat differently. He denies making threats, but he agrees that Montalban was under fire from some Chicano critics, including one member of Justicia whom he declined to identify. In the end, Andrade came to respect Montalban’s efforts to change Hollywood from the inside.

“Ricardo was always a gentleman, but he spoke out like a champ,” says Andrade, 61, who now repairs junk items for resale. “We were proud of him.”

Montalban says his activism took a toll on his film career. Some producers resented his critiques.

“I heard people were saying, ‘That son of a gun. He’s been making his living here. Why doesn’t he go back to Mexico if he doesn’t like it?’ ”

Being briefly ostracized in film led him back to his first love, the stage, and the role of a lifetime. In the early ‘70s, Montalban toured the U.S. in the title role of George Bernard Shaw’s “Don Juan in Hell,” drawing strong reviews.

“The best thing I’ve ever done,” he says. “The theater is the best teacher. The audience teaches you a great deal. You know when you have them in the palm of your hand. And you know when you’re losing them.”

Can you say ‘Montalban’?

MONTALBAN appears more relaxed and cheerful during a second interview at the home he shares with Georgiana, his wife of more than half a century, the younger sister of actress Loretta Young. This time, he rolled himself out in his wheelchair to greet a visitor, pushing himself down a long sunlit hallway into his spacious living room.

The day was much warmer, perhaps reminding him of his childhood in Torreon, the desert town in northern Mexico where he loved to see American movies at Saturday matinees. The weather also had a healing effect because the heat relieved the pain around the false knee in his right leg.

Montalban believes he had a slight case of polio as a child. As an adult, he was diagnosed with a malformation of blood vessels in the area of the spine.

Pain medication sometimes clouds his memory, he says. The lapses are distracting. He closes his eyes and tries hard to recall familiar names when they don’t come to him readily. It makes him feel like crying sometimes, he admits with visible stress.

In his lighter mood, though, he jokes that people often mispronounced his name in strange ways. He’s heard Ricardo Mountbatten. Ricardo Mendalbaum. Ricardo Montebland. And -- “this one I don’t understand” -- Ricardo Monteballs. Even “Sesame Street” has parodied his name with a character called Ricardo Monster-ban. The actor chuckles at the honor.

Montalban says he doesn’t mind being remembered for something that seems superficial, like his accent or his surname. He became part of American pop culture with his Chrysler Cordoba commercials and his trilled pronunciation of the phrase “rich, Corinthian leather,” a product that doesn’t exist.

It’s fine with him to go down in history as a debonair car pitchman or a popular TV character like Mr. Roarke -- “as long as you’re remembered for something.”

But if he had his way, Montalban would want people to remember him for that one quality that made him a success and promises to do the same for his struggling theater.

“Tenacity,” he says. “Against some pretty big odds.”