I just read about the passing of Ricardo Montalban today, not seeing the news yesterday when he died. He was a very gracious man. I had the pleasure of attending a seminar where he spoke. What you saw on screen was what you saw in person.

Interestingly, not many people knew that his parents were from Spain and that they emigrated to Mexico where Mr. Montalban was born. His parents raised him Spanish and he spoke castillian yet he always referred to himself as Mexican, proud of his land of birth.

He will always be remember as Mr. Roark of Fantasy Island, but I will remember him as Khan from the Star Trek Movie: The Rath Of Khan, (which in my opinion was the best of the series).

Here is the link to the ob if anyone is interested:

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/01/14/arts/AP-Obit-Montalban.html

Aha! So there IS a Spain Connection. I was wondering, at first. Thanks for that. Apparently, his birth name was "Ricardo Gonzalo Pedro Montalban y Merino". Somewhat oddly enough, I can't find any info about his Spanish parents on WikiPedia page nor on IMDB.com page. No mention of them whatsoever. More searches reveal only that his parents emigrated from northern Spain, I'm guessing from Galicia as so many others did.

Saludos, MadridMan

Maybe I'm making a big thing about this but the man was truly a sage with words. He had that kind of character and personality that allowed you to listen to whatever it was he said with so much elegance and grace that if he said the sky was green you would agree! Here are some of his quotes I'm assuming are from interviews. They're quite profound...

Ricardo Montalban Trivia & Quotes