Don Alvarado
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Don Alvarado (November 4, 1904 – March 31, 1967) was an American actor, assistant film director, and film production manager.
Born José Paige in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in 1922 he went to Los Angeles hoping to find acting work in the film industry. There, he became close friends with another Mexican actor, Luis Antonio Dámaso de Alonso, who would become a famous film star calling himself Gilbert Roland.
| Don Alvarado | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born | José Paige November 4, 1904 Albuquerque, New Mexico |
| Died | March 31, 1967 (aged 62) Hollywood, California |
| Other name(s) | Don Page |
| Occupation | Film actor, director |
The struggling young actors shared a place for a time but Alvarado soon met and fell in love with sixteen-year-old Ann Boyar (1908–1990), the daughter of Russian Jewish immigrants. They married in 1924 and that year had a daughter, actress Joy Page. Jack Warner convinced Ann to file for a quick divorce from Don in Mexico in August 1932.[1][2] She moved in with Warner perhaps as early as September 1933; she married him in 1936. In 1932, Alvarado was briefly engaged to the musical-comedy star Marilyn Miller, but the marriage did not take place.
Don Alvarado got his first uncredited silent film part in 1924 and, with the studio capitalizing on his "Latin Lover" looks, he was very shortly cast in secondary then leading roles. The advent of talkies all but ended his starring roles but he still managed to work regularly, usually cast in secondary Spanish character roles, such as in the 1929 Thornton Wilder adaptation The Bridge of San Luis Rey.
In 1939, using the name "Don Page" for screen credit purposes, he began working as an assistant director for Warner Bros. and a few years later as a prodiction manager. In these capacities he was part of the team that made a number of highly successful films including The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948), East of Eden and Rebel Without a Cause in 1955, and in 1958 his final film work, The Old Man and the Sea.
Don Alvarado died of cancer in 1967, aged 62, in Hollywood, California and was interred in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Hollywood Hills. For his contribution to the motion picture industry, Don Alvarado has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6504 Hollywood Boulevard.
[edit] References
- ^ Gabler, Neal (1989). An Empire of Their Own: How the Jews Invented Hollywood. Doubleday. ISBN 0385265573.
- ^ Thomas, Bob (1990). Clown Prince of Hollywood: The Antic Life and Times of Jack L. Warner. McGraw-Hill. ISBN 0070642591.
