An artist friend is working on a project and trying to assemble a large list of photogenic bad boys/dangerous types/rebels/playboys of the 40s/50s/early 60s without being totally Caucasian. I thought of Steve McQueen, James Dean, Robert Mitchum, Brando but I couldn’t think of many non-Caucasian examples other than Anthony Quinn.
Greeks are non-Caucasian?
Maybe Miles Davis or some other jazz figure?
Harry Belafonte might count as a playboy type.
THere were really no “non-caucasian” actors who reached a high enough level to be stars, to be icons. In other words, almost all non-caucasian actors were presumed to be bad characters often enough that they were cliches. With rare exceptions, like Sidney Poitier and Omar Sharif, non-whites were typecast as unsavory characters almost universally, so they tended to stay in the background.
Anthony Quinn was Mexican. In keeping with the all-foreigners-are-the-same blinders of mainstream Hollywood, he only *played *a Greek . . . like Marlon Brando and Charlton Heston. No wait, they played Mexicans . . .
(Ever seen Brando as a Japanese character? NSFW.)
The Rat Pack, including Sammy Davis Jr, ought to cover the playboys.
Yeah, got the Rat Pack (I forgot to mention them). Music stars work too so Coltrane, Miles Davis, any other suggestions?
Yeah, that was my sense as well.
Eartha Kitt might count if you want to include some Bad Girls in the mix.
He played a central European in The 25th Hour , but that was Italian.
Is your artist friend totally committed to 40s-60s? I only ask because I know of one non-actor candidate that really epitomized the “bad boy” lifestyle/flouting of conventions/refusing to behave as “polite society” expected. Problem is, his period of max fame is from roughly 1908 to 1920/21…
Half-Mexican/half-Irish.
How about Charles Bronson? He’s of Lithuanian descent.
How about Ricardo Montalban?
He used to call himself “The All-Purpose Ethnic” because he’d played Arab, Greek, Spanish, Mexican, Russian, Italian, Native American–am I leaving any out?
Maybe Yule Brynner ?
Declan
I can’t think of a badboy role off the top of my head. He was a generic Latin Lover for most of his career.
I’d say Yul fits. His mother was a Russian Jew (who converted to Christianity); his father was part Swiss and part Mongolian.
RatPack era hollywood is more what she’s looking for.
Jewish-American Vic Morrow had some tough guy roles in the '50s.
Jaime Farr made his debut alongside Morrow in Blackboard Jungle but I don’t know if he played one of the punks or not.