Pedro de Cordoba
| Pedro de Cordoba | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born | September 28, 1881 New York City, New York, USA |
| Died | September 16, 1950 (aged 68) Sunland, California, USA |
| Occupation | Actor |
| Years active | 1915–1951 |
| Spouse | Eleanor M. Nolan (1928-?) Antoinette Glover (?-1921) (her death) |
Pedro de Cordoba (September 28, 1881 – September 16, 1950), was an American actor.
Pedro de Cordoba, who appeared in his first film, a 1915 version of Carmen, was actually a classically trained theatre actor who confessed he did not enjoy appearing in silent films nearly as much as he liked working on stage. However, de Cordoba's career during the early silent film era was prolific and he soon became a popular leading man in early Hollywood motion pictures. His Broadway career cast him with such legendary stage actresses as Jane Cowl and Katharine Cornell.
His deeply–resonant speaking voice made him perfectly suited to talking pictures, unlike many silent film stars who had neither foreseen, nor prepared for, the day when sound would meet celluloid. He enjoyed a career as one of the busiest character actors in Hollywood, from the 1930s through the ‘50’s. He was most often cast as aristocratic, or clerical characters of Hispanic origin, as in The Keys of the Kingdom (1944), because of his last name as well as his royal bearing.
In actuality he was born in New York City of parents who were French and Cuban in origin. He was a devout Catholic. He was very well read and knowledgeable about the Catholic faith, and served for a time as president of the Catholic Actors Guild of America. On rare occasions, he would be cast in the role of a villain.
De Cordoba’s most memorable part is probably his portrayal of the "living skeleton" sideshow character who hides fugitive Robert Cummings in his carnival wagon in the Alfred Hitchcock film Saboteur (1942). The last film in which the actor appeared, a political drama set in an unnamed South American dictatorship, Crisis (1950), was released shortly after his death.
Pedro de Cordoba died in 1950 and was interred at the Holy Cross Cemetery, Culver City in Los Angeles County, California.
[edit] Selected filmography
Silent
- The Little White Violet (1915) (*short)
- Jeanne of the Woods (1915) (*short)
- Carmen (1915)
- Temptation (1915)
- Maria Rosa (1916)
- Just a Song at Twilight (1916)
- Sapho (1917)
- One Law for Both (1917)
- Barbary Sheep (1917)
- Runaway, Romany (1917)
- A Daughter of the Old South (1918)
- The New Moon (1918)
- The Dark Mirror (1919)
- The World and His Wife (1920)
- The Sin That Was His (1920)
- The Inner Chamber (1921)
- The Young Diana (1922)
- When Knighthood Was in Flower (1922)
- Swords and the Woman (1923)
- Enemies of Women (1923)
- Fires of Fate (1923)
- The Purple Highway (1923)
- The Desert Sheik (1924)
- The Bandolero (1924)
- The New Commandment (1925)
Sound
- Hunt the Tiger (1929) (*short)
- Ramona (1936)
- The Garden of Allah (1936)
- Maid of Salem (1937)
- The Firefly (1937)
- International Settlement (1938)
- Juarez (1939)
- Kismet (1944)
- Tahiti Nights (1944)
