Cesar Romero was an American actor. He was active in film, radio, and television for almost 60 years. His wide range of screen roles included Latin lovers, historical figures in costume dramas, characters in light domestic comedies, and the Joker on the live-action Batman television series of the mid-1960s, who was included in TV Guide‘s 2013 list of the 60 nastiest villains of all time. Romero was the first actor to play the character.
The 6 ft 3 in Romero routinely played “Latin lovers” in films from the 1930s until the 1950s, usually in supporting roles. Romero played Antonio Galvan, one of two suitors vying for Marlene Dietrich in The Devil is a Woman.
Romero starred as the Cisco Kid in six westerns made between 1939 and 1941. He danced and performed comedy in the 20th Century Fox films he starred in opposite Carmen Miranda and Betty Grable, such as Week-End in Havana (1941) and Springtime in the Rockies(1942).
He also played a minor role as Sinjin, a piano player in Glenn Miller’s band, in the 1942 20th Century Fox musical Orchestra Wives. In The Thin Man (1934), Romero played a villainous supporting role opposite the film’s main stars William Powell and Myrna Loy.
From 1966 to 1968, he portrayed the Joker on Batman. He refused to shave his moustache for the role, and so the supervillain’s white face makeup was simply smeared over it throughout the series’ run and in the 1966 film.
He also appeared in a sixth-season episode of The Golden Girls, where he played a suitor named Tony Delvecchio for Sophia.
Romero never married and had no children. Many Hollywood historians and biographers have speculated on Romero being very private about his sexuality. In 1996, Boze Hadleigh wrote a book, Hollywood Gays, containing a series of claimed interviews in which Romero allegedly came out. Romero died two years before the book was released, and while many of the interviews in the book are disputed as possible forgeries, many are not disputed.
(Source: Wikipedia)
