Hiding his moustache under the makeup, Hollywood

veteran Cesar Romero teased & taunted TV's Batman.

by Eric Nicerost

Joker's Wild

by Eric Nicerost

Variety seemed to be a hallmark of Cesar Romero's career. Over the span of six decades, the veteran performer had been a cabaret dancer, Broadway star, light comedian, Western movie hero, dramatic actor and Latin heartthrob. Around 1960, he even tried a stab at being a recording artist and cut an album of romantic Latin melodies!

Yet, in spite of all his versatility, Romero is best remembered as the cunning Clown Prince of Crime on the campy '60's TV show Batman. Week after week, episode after episode, his Joker matched wits and traded blows - Bam! Pow! -with Adam West's Caped Crusader. Eric had the oportunity to interview Mr. Romero before he passed away.

"I had enormous fun playing the Joker on Batman," Romero recounted that day relaxing at his Los Angeles home. Despite his 82 years, the actor's voice still retains its deep, rich timbre. "I ended up doing something like 20 episodes of Batman, as well as the full-length feature film version. There was certainly nothing hard about that assignment! Even the makeup sessions weren't too bad. It took about an hour-and-a-half to put the full makeup on, including the green wig. I didn't mind that at all."

Born in New York City of Cuban parents, Romero is justly proud of his family tree. "My grandfather," he notes, "was Jose Marti, the man who led the fight against the occupying Spanish in Cuba in the 1890s. He's considered the "George Washington of Cuba" as well as being the nation's first president. There are statues of him in New York and elsewhere."

Saddled with a bank job he hated, Romero was easily persuaded when a female friend asked him to be her partner as a professional dance team. Before he knew it, he was performing as a dancer and actor on Broadway. But that was only the beginning. In those days - the early 1930s - Hollywood studios had a whole army of casting agents scouring the Big Apple in search of stage talent. A MGM scout spotted Romero and gave him a screen test. "As a result of that test," he recounts, "MGM brought me out to Hollywood under contract. That was  1934, and I've been her ever since!"

When Romero arrived, MGM was just beginning its dominance as the premier studio of Hollywood's Golden Age. Comments the actor, "I didn't last long at MGM, but they did put me to work right away. My first picture was The Thin Man with William Powell and Myrna Loy, and then they loaned me out to Warner Bros. to do Secret Agent with Leslie Howard."

It was beginner's luck to star in the now-classic whodunnit, though in one respect, the studio's assignment was odd. Romero was brought to the West Coast because of his Hispanic charm and Latin good looks, only to be cast as a mad man named...Jorgensen?? The way the silver-haired actor tells it, his first day on the Thin Man set was anything but auspicious. "I was used to the theater, where everybody would be introduced on the first day of rehearsal. Well, I walked on the Thin Man set my first day, and nobody said anything to me. I was completely ignored. Not "Hi, How are ya," or "What are you doing here," or even "Who are you?" It was very strange. Then, cast members began arriving on the set. Maureen O'Sullivan came on, but nobody introduced me to her, then Myrna Loy walked in, but nobody introduced me to her either.

"Finally, Bill Powell arrived on the set. This was ridiculous, so I went ahead and approached him myself. "Mr. Powell," I said, "I'm Cesar Romero from New York, and I'm here to play the part of Jorgensen." He paused a moment, looked me up and down with that quizzical way of his, then said, `Oh. Well, we'll be doing things, won't we!" Powell was a charming, delightful man, and a polished actor. We became friends, and whenever he was me, he would say, "We'll be doing things." In real life, he was very much like the character he played in The Thin Man."

After leaving MGM, Romero worked about three years at Universal before landing a permanent home at 20th Century Fox. The year was 1938, and Fox signed Romero as a contract player specializing in Latin American romantic leads. Just before America's entry into World War II, Romero played the Cisco Kid in a series of movies. These sagebrush sagas, already filmed several times before he assumed the role, had an Hispanic hero who was allowed to be as brave and resourceful as any WASP cowboy. This was significant in an age when most racial and ethnic minorities were savagely stereotyped.

"The first Cisco Kid," Romero remembers, "was Warner Baxter, and he won an Academy Award for playing the part in a picture called In Old Arizona. That was in 1929, and it was the first "all-talking" Western, which caused a sensation. I took over the role beginning with The Cisco Kid and the Lady in 1939. I ended up doing about six Cisco pictures, and I loved doing them. The Cisco Kid was fun because I was on a horse all the time and I loved to ride. Each picture was also well made with high production values."

Romero denies he was ever held back because of his Latin ancestry, and downplays the rampant racism of the day - at least in his own case. He acknowledges that it's tough to be a young Hispanic actor these days, but claims the Latin image was more positive when he was first starting. "Don't forget," he cautions, "that Rudolph Valentino as one of the greatest stars in the business in the 1920s. Valentino died in 1926, and arrived in Hollywood eight years later. The Valentino thing was still current, still on everybody's mind. So, anyone with a Latin name was going to be another Valentino, which was nonsense. But the image wasn't negative.

"I was never stereotyped as just a Latin lover in any case, because I played so many parts in so many pictures. I was more of a character actor that a straight leading man. I did many kids of characters - Hindus, Indians, Italians. There were very few pictures where I ended up with the girl."

By the 1950s, the advent of television caused many Hollywood careers to tailspin, but not Romero's. To him, the small screen was just another avenue of employment. In many respects, the 1960s were the actor's "genre decade," a time when he played more horror or fantasy than at any other. The trend started with the 1965 thriller Two on a Guillotine which featured Romero as Duke Duquesne, a magician who accidentally beheaded his wife during his act.

On the small screen, Romero guest starred in "The Never-Never Affair," an episode of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. As Victor Gervais, evil THRUSH agent extraordinaire, he was after some microfilm carried by Get Smart's Barbara Feldon. His plans are foiled by hero Napoleon Solo's (Robert Vaughn) timely marksmanship. "I can't remember anything about that Man from U.N.C.L.E.," the actor sheepishly concedes, "because I guest starred in a million series episodes at the time. It was just a matter of in and out - you do your job, collect your paycheck, and go to the next show."

And then came Batman. "It all started one day," the actor testified, "when I received a phone call from Batman producer William Dozier. He explained there was going to be a guest villain each week, and maybe I would be interested in a part. I didn't know what the hell he was talking about; I had never read the comic and didn't even know who Batman was."

"The producer explained that they had already completed two episodes, one with Frank Gorshin and the other with Burgess Meredith. A third episode was about to be filmed with a villain named the Joker, and he wanted me for that part. Now I've played all sorts of heavies; one of my favorite was a hood in Show Them No Mercy."

"But Batman? Before I gave him my answer, Dozer suggested that I come down to the studio and see Gorshin's episode and get an idea what Batman was all about. I saw the episode, thought it was great, and when I read the script, I said to myself, "Yeah, I'll do this!" I can't think of specific anecdotes, but we all had great fun."

But recently, the cowl has been dusted off for Batman starring Michael Keaton. "I understand," Romero muses, "the movie is completely different in tone from our show, and different from the things we used to do. It's supposed to be much more serious, and less campy than the TV series. I don't know what `more serious' means in this case. Jack Nicholson plays the Joker. I don't know specifically what they've done to the Batman story, but I know they've eliminated Robin. No more Boy Wonder!"

The 70s saw Romero star in three Disney fantasy comedies. The first, The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes (1970), featured Kurt Russell as a student inventor/genius named Dexter. The young man's brain gets fused with a computer's memory banks, causing no end of the complications for Medfield College. A sequel, 1972's Now You See Him, Now You Don't, had Russell invent an invisibility spray sought be a gang of crooks led by Romero. In the last entry, 1975s The Strongest Man in the World, Dexter stumbles across an elixir that transforms him into a veritable Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Contemporary audiences may know Romero best for his semi-regular appearances on the primetime soap Falcon Crest. As Peter Stavros, Romero feels lucky to play opposite the wine matriarch essayed by longtime friend Jane Wyman. "It was a pleasant and easy job," Romero details, "because Jane likes to get to the studio, do her scenes, then go home. Since most of my stuff was with Jane, I would report at 8:00 a.m., then be home by noon or 1:00 p.m. And you only work two-to-three days a week, so it's perfect. I've appeared in two episodes this season, and may go back on the show because they haven't killed off my character."

Retirement is not a work in Cesar Romero's dictionary. "I walk as much as I can," he says, " and I do exercise in a small gym located in the building  where I live. I'm going to keep working; I've just completed a cops and robbers tale called Street Justice. So, I'll still be around!". Although he was to later die at age 86 from physical complications, those words still ring true. Through our respective collections and re-runs of the television series, you can't help but remember the man who's name is synonymous with being "the Joker".