About Me
Born José Ramón Gil Samaniego in Durango, Durango, Mexico, he moved with his family to Los Angeles, California, U.S., to escape the Mexican Revolution. A cousin of actress Dolores del RÃo, he entered films in 1917 playing bit parts, and 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, with his revealing costumes causing a sensation, and Novarro was elevated into the Hollywood elite. With Valentino's death in 1926, he 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 also considered one of the great romantic lead actors of his day.He appeared with Norma Shearer in The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg (1927) and appeared with Joan Crawford in Across to Singapore in 1928. A silent still shown occasionally on television is his 1929 The Flying Fleet, an energetic story of early naval aviation. He made his first talking film, starring as a singing French soldier, in Devil-May-Care (1929). He starred with, Greta Garbo in Mata Hari in 1932 and was a qualified success opposite Myrna Loy in The Barbarian (1933).His star began to fade. When his contract with MGM Studios expired in 1935, the studio did not renew it. Novarro continued to act sporadically, appearing in a couple of films for Republic Pictures, a Mexican religious drama, and a French comedy. Later in the 1940s, he had several small roles in American films. A Broadway tryout was aborted in the 1960s, though Novarro kept busy on television, appearing in The 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. After his career ended, he was still able to maintain a comfortable lifestyle.There are rumors that MGM mogul Louis B. Mayer tried to coerce Novarro into a "lavender marriage", which he refused. However, some— including Novarro biographer André Soares— assert that there is no evidence that Mayer tried to coerce Novarro into a contractual marriage. Novarro had been troubled all his life as a result of his conflicting views over his Roman Catholic religion and his homosexuality.[1] He was a friend of adventurer and author Richard Halliburton.Novarro was murdered by two brothers, Tom and Paul Ferguson, whom he had paid 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 Novarro's house. The prosecution accused them of torturing Novarro for several hours to force him to reveal where the nonexistent money was hidden. They left with a mere twenty dollars they took from his bathrobe pocket before fleeing the scene. Novarro allegedly died as a result of asphyxiation, choking to death on his own blood after being brutally beaten. He was buried in Calvary Cemetery in Los Angeles. The two brothers were later caught and sentenced to long prison terms, but were quickly released on probation. Both were later rearrested for unrelated crimes, for which they served longer terms than for their murder conviction.
