Ricardo Gonzalo Pedro Montalbán y Merino

 Ricardo Gonzalo Pedro Montalbán y Merino, KSG (November 25, 1920 – January 14, 2009)

His career spanned seven decades, during which he became known for many different roles. During the 1970s, he was a spokesman in automobile advertisements for Chrysler, including those in which he extolled the "soft Corinthian leather" used for the Cordoba's interior. Montalbán recalled that when he arrived in Hollywood in 1943, studios wanted to change his name to Ricky Martin. His first leading role was in the film Border Incident (1949) with actor George Murphy. He was the first Hispanic actor to appear on the front cover of Life magazine on November 21, 1949. Many of his early roles were in Westerns in which he played character parts, usually as an "Indian" or as a "Latin Lover", but he was cast against type in the film Mystery Street (1950), playing a Cape Cod police officer. From 1957 to 1959, he starred in the Broadway musical Jamaica, singing several light-hearted calypso numbers opposite Lena Horne.

During the 1950s and 1960s, he was one of only a handful of actively working Hispanic actors in Hollywood, although he portrayed several ethnicities. From 1977 to 1984, Montalbán played Mr. Roarke in the television series Fantasy Island. He played Khan Noonien Singh in the original Star Trek series and the 1982 film Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. He won an Emmy Award in 1978 for his role in the miniseries How the West Was Won,[2] and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Screen Actors Guild in 1993. In his eighties, he provided voices for animated films and commercials, and appeared as Grandfather Valentin in the Spy Kids franchise. On January 14, 2009, Montalbán died at his home in Los Angeles, age 88, He is buried at Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, CA.