Antonio Moreno | |
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Publicity portrait Moreno (1916)
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Born |
Antonio Garrido Monteagudo September 26, 1887 Madrid, Spain |
Died |
Beverly Hills, California, U.S. |
February 15, 1967 (aged 79)
Occupation | Actor/Director |
Years active | 1912–1959 |
Spouse(s) | Daisy Canfield Danziger (1923-1933) |
Antonio "Tony" Moreno (September 26, 1887 – February 15, 1967) was a Spanish-born American actor and film director of the silent film era and through the 1950s.
Born Antonio Garrido Monteagudo in Madrid, Spain, he emigrated to the United States at the age of fourteen and settled in Massachusetts, where he completed his education. Although he claimed to have attended Williston Seminary in Easthampton, Massachusetts, the Archives of the school, now the Williston Northampton School, have no record of his having done so. He became a stage actor in regional theater productions. In 1912 he moved to Hollywood, California and he was signed to Biograph Studios and began his career in bit parts and as a movie extra. His film debut was in Iola's Promise (1912).
In 1914 Moreno began co-starring in a series of highly successful serials at Vitagraph opposite popular silent film actress Norma Talmadge. These appearances helped to increase Moreno's popularity with the nation's nascent filmgoers, and by 1915 he was a highly regarded matinee idol, appearing opposite such successful actors as Tyrone Power, Sr., Gloria Swanson, Blanche Sweet, Pola Negri, and Dorothy Gish. Moreno was often typecast in his earliest films as the "Latin Lover", as were other actors of the era with Latin roots, such as Ramón Novarro and Rudolph Valentino. These roles predate Valentino's famous breakthrough as a "Latin Lover" in the 1921 film The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.