We’ll Miss You, Ricardo
Ricardo Montalban passed away this week and I’ve been reading the various tributes posted around the web. He was a friend to conservatives and the man whose performance so disgusted one of the leading lights of Islamist “thinking” that he went back home and stepped up his radicalization. I didn’t know either of those things. He was also gracious and generous with his time and I did know that.
Though his acting was lampooned, he filled every role he played with a very real gravity. No matter who else was on the screen, you couldn’t help but pay attention mostly to him.
I don’t have much else to say that James Lileks didn’t already say, so I’ll quote the best of his post.
A small amount of the world’s vanishing store of grace and comportment died with Montalban. I never watched “Fantasy Island” – I stopped watching TV shows entirely between high school and “Miami Vice,” because of shows like “Fantasy Island” or “Love Boat” – spun puffed drivel with laugh tracks and single-entendres and hack actors in ruffled shirts, disco strings leading you into the commercial break, the omnipresent threat of Tom Bosley, all that stuff. But Richard Montalban had so much poise and class he could have appeared on Hee Haw in a halter top and Daisy Dukes, and his dignity would be intact. He also seemed to project self-amusement and self-awareness, no? Something wry and fatalistic about the fellow, but content.
Lileks also talks about Patrick McGoohan, who also died this week. McGoohan was the star of The Prisoner, easily the quirkiest television show that didn’t directly involve David Lynch. I never did get into the show; it was mostly in syndication and showed at odd times when I was a teenager. However, I’m thinking that I might. AMC has put all the episodes of the show online so there’s really no excuse for my not doing so.
One last thing about Montalban before I go. He’s best known among geeks like me for his role as Khan Noonian Singh, the greatest Star Trek villain ever created. He introduced the role in the the late first-season episode “Space Seed” and when Harve Bennett needed the seed (Ha!) for the second Star Trek movie, he went right to Khan. It was a brilliant choice because by choosing Khan, he got Montalban, who simply stole the movie.
For my money, the first battle scene between the Enterprise and the Reliant, where Khan reveals himself to Kirk, is the best action scene in any a science-fiction movie. The pacing is a ting of beauty, the acting pitch-perfect, and the music is…well…here’s the scene. Tell me you don’t get at least a few goosebumps when the “Khan Theme” makes its first appearance early on.
It takes some real chops to take the attention away from Shatner when he’s in full Kirk mode, but Montalban does it. Watch for a couple places where his non-verbal acting delivers all the emotion that you could ever want – first right when the torpedo hits the Enterprise and when the Reliant’s shields go down. Perfect.
Two bits of trivia. First, that really is Montalban’s chest and not a prosthetic (as has been rumored). Second, Khan and Kirk never meet face to face in the movie. No one has ever said for sure whether Shatner and Montalban ever met while filming their scenes, but it’s a good bet that they didn’t. Which makes the acting here even more impressive.
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Category: In Memoriam, It's Entertainment!
