Does race and ethnicity matter in casting?

Does race and ethnicity matter in casting? Find out what the Fountain Theatre in Los Angeles opines by clicking here.

¡Feliz cumpleaños, Rita Moreno!

The Hispanic Organization of Latin Actors (HOLA) wishes a happy 80th birthday to the trailblazing, vibrant pioneer-- actor-singer-dancer-- and winner of the Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony-- Ms. Rita Moreno.

Thank you for busting down the doors that helped Latinos in the arts and for helping us realize our limitless potential.

To find out more about Ms. Moreno and to see her in action, click here and here.

HOLA Member Bochinche

Bochinche refers to "gossip." In this sense, we use it to mention HOLA members who are getting acting and performance gigs. The names of HOLA members are in boldface.

Kamar de los Reyes has a guest-starring role in an episode of "Reed Between the Lines" (BET).

Joel Luna booked a role in the short film Last Bullet (directed by Rafael Boelter).

Yanelba Ferreira, shown at left, e-mailed us to let us know that she finished filming the short film The Day That Was (written and directed by Edgar De La Vega). In addition, she booked a role in the short film Seizure (written and directed by Loui Terrier) through an HOLA casting referral.

R.Evolución Latina presented An Evening of Celebration. Directed and conceived by Luis Salgado (with musical direction by Zach Dietz and orchestrations by Jaime Lozano), the evening of music and dance featured performances by Andrea Patterson, Charles D'Amato, Doreen Montalvo, Eliseo Román, Taharq, Daniel J. Watts, Olga Merediz and Salgado and took place in December at the Engelman Recital Hall in the Baruch Performing Arts Center in the Gramercy area of Manhattan. Additional performers included Karina Alós, Mónica Delgado, Anthony Michael Martínez, Marisel Polanco, Yvette Quintero, Reza Salazar and Mônica Steuer.

Madres y comadres, the "webnovela" presented by Kmart and starring Loren Escandón and Mafer Rodríguez and directed by Alberto Ferreras, is featured in a Solpersona article by Frankie De Soto.

Marcela Landres wrote "The Latinidad List: Best Latino Books of 2011" on ¡LatinoLA! Under the category of poetry collection, her pick was Me No Habla With Acento (edited by Emanuel Xavier and published by Rebel Satori Press/El Museo Del Barrio), which features the work of A.B. Lugo and Caridad De La Luz. To see who else made the list, click here.

Lucio Fernández premiered his new music video "Choza de amor" off his new collection of tunes, Enamorado (available on iTunes). The video, directed by Lucio and Megan Fernández, was shot on location in Mexico and can be seen below.



If you are an HOLA member and want to submit a bochinche item, send us an e-mail at holagram@hellohola.org. If you are not an HOLA member, why not join?

HOLA Member Bochinche

Bochinche refers to "gossip." In this sense, we use it to mention HOLA members who are getting acting and performance gigs. The names of HOLA members are in boldface.

Marco Antonio Rodríguez was the feature in an article for Latino Leaders magazine. To see the article, click here.

Gabriel García booked a role in an industrial video for the North Shore-LIJ Health System on health literacy. He also booked a role in the short film Patchogue (directed by Ougie Pak).

Danisarte is presenting their latest The New Treasures/Los nuevos valores Theater Festival. Produced by Alicia Kaplan, it took place in December at the Julia de Burgos Latino Cultural Center in Manhattan's El Barrio neighborhood. The festival included plays by Masha Kuznetsov, Julio Ortega, Sonia Suárez Schwartz and Juan Guzmán, respectively, and were directed by Franco Galecio, Kaplan, Cecill Villar and Guzmán, respectively. Actors in the festival included América Barrera, Estela Orosco, Galecio, Carolina Cruz, Nestor Carrillo, Kaplan, Guzmán, Josue Vargas, among others. For more information, click here.

Indie Theater Blog presented the Best of 2011 collection, a list of the top five theater productions. In the list is Día de los Muertos, written by Anthony P. Pennino and directed by Alberto Bonilla, presented by Teatro LATEA and Core Creative Productions this past July. The cast included Bonilla, Javier E. Gómez and Ydaiber Orozco. For more information, click here.

Ydaiber Orozco and Ron Sarcos acted in the Ricardo Prieto play Los disfraces. Directed by José Bonilla, it took place at the end of November in the Sala Don Iván García Guerra in the Casa de la Cultura de Navarrete USA in Manhattan's Washington Heights neighborhood.

If you are an HOLA member and want to submit a bochinche item, send us an e-mail at holagram@hellohola.org. If you are not an HOLA member, why not join?

Stephen Adly Guirgis in The New York Times Regarding the Controversial TheaterWorks Hartford production of THE MOTHERF**KER WITH THE HAT

Playwright Stephen Adly Guirgis, shown at left, writes in The New York Times about the recent casting controversy in the TheaterWorks Hartford production of his play The Motherf**ker With The Hat. Read it by clicking here.

HOLA Legends: Ramón Novarro

Ramón Novarro (1899–1968), born José Ramón Gil Samaniego on February 6 in Victoria de Durango, Durango, Mexico, was a leading man actor in Hollywood in the early 20th century. He was the next male "sex symbol" after the death of Rudolph Valentino. The son of a doctor, the family (with 12 children) moved to Los Angeles, California, U.S.A. to escape the after-effects of the Mexican Revolution in 1913.

A second cousin of the actresses Dolores del Río and Andrea Palma, he entered films in 1917 in bit parts; and he supplemented his income by working as a singing waiter. His friends, the actor and director Rex Ingram and his wife, the actress Alice Terry, began to promote him as a rival to Rudolph Valentino, and Ingram suggested he change his name to "Novarro." From 1923, he began to play more prominent roles. His role in Scaramouche (1923) brought him his first major success.

In 1925, he achieved his greatest success in Ben-Hur, his revealing costumes causing a sensation, and was elevated into the Hollywood elite. With Valentino's death in 1926, Novarro became the screen's leading Latin actor, though ranked behind his MGM stablemate, John Gilbert, as a model lover. He was popular as a swashbuckler in action roles and was considered one of the great romantic lead actors of his day. He appeared with Norma Shearer in The Student Prince of Old Heidelberg (1927) and with Joan Crawford in Across to Singapore (1928). He made his first talking film, starring as a singing French soldier, in Devil-May-Care (1929). He also starred with the French actress Renée Adorée in The Pagan (1929). He also starred with Greta Garbo in Mata Hari (1932) and was a qualified success opposite Myrna Loy in The Barbarian (1933).

When his contract with MGM Studios expired in 1935, the studio did not renew it. He continued to act sporadically, appearing in films for Republic Pictures, a Mexican religious drama, and a French comedy. In the 1940s, he had several small roles in American films, including John Huston's We Were Strangers (1949) starring Jennifer Jones and John Garfield. A Broadway tryout was aborted in the 1960s, but he kept busy on television, appearing in NBC's "High Chaparral" as late as 1968.

At the peak of his success in the late 1920s and early 1930s, he was earning more than US$100,000 per film. He invested some of his income in real estate, and his Hollywood Hills residence is one of the more renowned designs (1927) by architect Lloyd Wright. After his career ended, he was still able to maintain a comfortable lifestyle.

He had been troubled all his life as a result of his conflicting views over his Roman Catholic religion and his homosexuality, and his life-long struggle with alcoholism is often traced to these issues. He was a friend of adventurer and author Richard Halliburton, also a celebrity in the closet, and was romantically involved with journalist Herbert Howe, who was also his publicist during the late 1920s.

He was murdered on October 30, 1968, by two brothers, Paul and Tom Ferguson (aged 22 and 17, respectively), whom he had hired from an agency to come to his Laurel Canyon home for sex. According to the prosecution in the murder case, the two young men believed that a large sum of money was hidden in his house. The prosecution accused them of torturing him for several hours to force him to reveal where the nonexistent money was hidden. They left with a mere 20 dollars they took from his bathrobe pocket before fleeing the scene. He allegedly died as a result of asphyxiation, choking to death on his own blood after being brutally beaten. The two brothers were later caught and sentenced to long prison terms but were quickly released on probation. Both were later re-arrested for unrelated crimes, for which they served longer terms than for their murder conviction.

He is buried in Calvary Cemetery, in Los Angeles. His star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame is at 6350 Hollywood Boulevard.

Singing the song "Lonely"


With Greta Garbo in Mata Hari (1932)


In Ben-Hur (1925) [subtitled in Spanish]


Tribute to Ramón Novarro

Cinematic Tough Guys Who Love Latinas

John Wayne (1907—1979), born Marion Robert Morrison and also known as Marion Mitchell Morrison and "The Duke," was an American film actor, director and producer. An Academy Award-winner, he is one of the biggest box office draws of all time. An enduring American icon, he epitomized rugged masculinity and is famous for his demeanor, including his distinctive calm voice, walk, and height. Born in Winterset, Iowa, U.S.A., his family relocated to the greater Los Angeles area when he was four. He found work at local film studios when he lost his football scholarship to the University of Southern California as a result of a surfing accident. Initially working for the Fox Film Corporation, he mostly appeared in small bit parts. His acting breakthrough came in 1939 with John Ford's Stagecoach, making him an instant star. He would go on to star in 142 pictures, primarily typecast in Western films. He won the Academy Award for the film True Grit (1969). For more information, click here.

He married three times and divorced twice. All of his wives were Latina: Josephine Alicia Sáenz, Esperanza Baur and Pilar Pallete, the latter two of whom were actresses. His wives were Panamanian, Mexican and Peruvian, respectively. He had four children with his first wife: Michael Morrison (1934—2003), Mary Antonia "Toni" Morrison LaCava (1936—2000), Patrick Morrison (1939— ), and Melinda Morrison Muñoz (1940— ); no children with his second wife; and three children with his third wife: Aissa Morrison (1956— ), John Ethan Morrison (1962— ), and Marisa Morrison (1966— ). Three of his sons (under the names Michael Wayne, Patrick Wayne and John Ethan Wayne, respectively), pursued careers as actors.

Clinton "Clint" Eastwood, Jr. (1930— ) is an American film actor, director, producer, composer and politician. Born in San Francisco, California, U.S.A., he first came to prominence as a supporting cast member in the TV series "Rawhide" (1959–1965). He rose to fame for playing the Man with No Name in Sergio Leone's Dollars trilogy of spaghetti westerns (A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More and The Good, The Bad and the Ugly) during the 1960s, and as San Francisco Police Department Inspector Harry Callahan in the Dirty Harry films (Dirty Harry, Magnum Force, The Enforcer, Sudden Impact and The Dead Pool) during the 1970s and 1980s.

He won Academy Awards for Best Director and Producer of the Best Picture, as well as receiving nominations for Best Actor, for his work in the films Unforgiven (1992) and Million Dollar Baby (2004). In addition to directing most of his own star vehicles, he has also directed films in which he did not appear, such as Mystic River (2003) and Letters from Iwo Jima (2006), for which he received Academy Award nominations, and Changeling (2008). These roles, along with several others in which he plays tough-talking no-nonsense police officers, have made him an enduring cultural icon of masculinity. In 2000 he was awarded the Italian Venice Film Festival Golden Lion for lifetime achievement. Since 1967, Eastwood has run his own production company, Malpaso, which has produced the vast majority of his films. He also served as the nonpartisan mayor of Carmel-by-the-Sea, California, U.S.A., from 1986 to 1988. For more information, click here or here.

He has had a passion for music all his life. He particularly favors jazz and country and western music and is a pianist and composer. He developed as a ragtime pianist early on and had originally intended to pursue a career in music by studying for a music theory degree after graduating from high school. He has his own Warner Bros. Records-distributed imprint Malpaso Records, as part of his deal with Warner Brothers, which has released all of the scores of his films from The Bridges of Madison County onward.

He has seven children by five different women, and has married twice. He married Maggie Johnson on December 19, 1953. While separated from Johnson, he had an affair with dancer Roxanne Tunis, with whom he had his first child, Kimber Tunis (1964— ). After a reconciliation, he had two children with Johnson: Kyle Eastwood (1968— ) and Alison Eastwood (1972— ). He filed for divorce in 1979 after a long separation which was finalized in 1984. He then entered a relationship with actress Sondra Locke in 1975, and they lived together for fourteen years despite the fact that she remained married (in name only) to her gay husband, Gordon Anderson. They co-starred in six films together: The Outlaw Josey Wales, The Gauntlet, Every Which Way But Loose, Bronco Billy, Any Which Way You Can, and Sudden Impact. The couple separated acrimoniously in 1989. During his cohabitation with Locke, he had an affair with flight attendant Jacelyn Reeves. From this union is his son, Scott Reeves (1986— ) and Kathryn Reeves (1988— ). In 1990, he began living with actress Frances Fisher, whom he had met on the set of Pink Cadillac (1989). They co-starred in Unforgiven and had a daughter, Francesca Fisher-Eastwood (1993— ). The couple ended their relationship in early 1995, but remain friends and later appeared together in True Crime. His son Kyle is a jazz bassist and his daughter Alison is an actor.

He subsequently began dating Dina Ruiz, an anchorwoman 35 years his junior, whom he had first met when she interviewed him in 1993. They married on March 31, 1996, when he surprised her with a private ceremony at his home. Ruiz is of African American-Japanese-Irish-German-English descent, but was adopted by a Latino family named Ruiz. The couple has one daughter, Morgan Eastwood (1996— ). He has two grandchildren: Clinton (1984— ) and Graylen (1994— ), by Kimber and Kyle respectively.

Marlon Brando, Jr. (1924—2004) was an American actor and political activist. He was the only professional actor, aside from Charlie Chaplin, named by Time magazine as one of its 100 Persons of the Century in 1999. He had a significant impact on film acting, and was the foremost example of the Method acting style and is widely considered as one of the greatest and most influential actors of the 20th century. Director Martin Scorsese said of him, "He is the marker. There's 'before Brando' and 'after Brando'." Actor Jack Nicholson once said, "When Marlon dies, everybody moves up one." He was ranked by the American Film Institute as the fourth greatest screen legend among male movie stars.

An enduring cultural icon, he became a box office star during the 1950s, during which time he racked up five Oscar nominations as Best Actor. He initially gained popularity for recreating the role as Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), a Tennessee Williams play that had established him as a Broadway star during its 1947-49 stage run; and for his Academy Award-winning performance as Terry Malloy in On the Waterfront (1954), as well as for his iconic portrayal of the rebel motorcycle gang leader Johnny Strabler in The Wild One (1953), which is considered to be one of the most famous images in pop culture. He was also nominated for the Oscar for playing Emiliano Zapata in Viva Zapata! (1952); Mark Antony in Joseph L. Mankiewicz's 1953 film adaptation of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar; and as Air Force Major Lloyd Gruver in Sayonara (1957), Joshua Logan's adaptation of James Michener's 1954 novel. He won his second Academy Award for playing Vito Corleone in Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather (1972), a role critics consider among his greatest. His final nomination was for the role of Paul in Bernardo Bertolucci's Last Tango in Paris (1972). As an activist, the Omaha, Nebraska, U.S.A.-born actor supported many issues, notably the African American Civil Rights Movement and various American Indian Movements. For more information, click here or here.

He had numerous children. Some historians put the number of children he had as fourteen, including three of whom he adopted. He married Indian-Welsh-Irish actress Anna Kashfi in 1957; they had a son Christian Brando (1958—2008), divorcing in 1959. He then married María Movita Castañeda, a Mexican-American actress; they were divorced in 1962. They had two children together, Miko Castañeda Brando (1961— ) and Rebecca Brando (1966— ). His third wife was Tahitian actress Tarita Teriipia, who played his love interest in the 1962 film Mutiny on the Bounty. They married in 1962. Teriipia became the mother of two of his children, Simon Teihotu Brando (1963— ) and Tarita Cheyenne Brando (1970-1995). He also adopted Teriipia's daughters Maimiti Brando (1977— ) and Raiatua Brando (1982— ), even though they divorced in 1972.

He had a longterm relationship (roughly between 1988 and 1996) with his housekeeper María Christina Ruiz, by whom he had three children, Ninna Priscilla Brando (1989— ), Myles Jonathan Brando (1992— ), and Timothy Gahan Brando (1994— ). He had three more children by unidentified women, Stefano Brando (1967— ), Dylan Brando (1968—1988), and Angelique Brando (?— ). He also adopted Petra Brando-Corval (1972— ), the daughter of his assistant Caroline Barrett and novelist James Clavell.

Of his children, only Stefano, using the stage name Stephen Blackehart, is an actor. Tuki Brando, one of his numerous grandchildren (some estimates say as many as 36), is a famous Tahitian fashion model in his own right. The current exact number of Brando's descendents is unknown.