Ricardo Cortez

Ricardo Cortez was a film actor who began his career during the silent film era.

Born Jacob Krantz in New York City into a Jewish family, he worked on Wall Street before his looks got him into the film business. Hollywood executives changed his name to Cortez to appeal to film-goers as a "Latin lover" to compete with such highly popular actors of the era as Rudolph Valentino, Ramon Novarro and Antonio Moreno. When rumour began to circulate that Cortez was not actually Latin, the studios tried to pass him off as French, before they finally admitted his Viennese origin.