Don Alvarado

Don Alvarado
in I Live For Love (1935)
Born	José Paige November 4, 1904 Albuquerque, New Mexico, U.S.
Died	March 31, 1967 (aged 62) Hollywood, California, U.S.
Other names	Don Page
Occupation	Actor, film director
Years active	1924-1958
Spouse(s)	Ann Boyar (1924-1932/33; divorced); 1 child
Children	Joy Page (actress)

Don Alvarado (November 4, 1904 – March 31, 1967) was an American actor, assistant film director, and film production manager.

Life and career

Born as José Paige in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He first studied agriculture on his father's sheep and cattle ranch but ran away from home and went to Los Angeles in 1922, still a teenager, hoping to find acting work in the fledgling silent film industry. He secured work in a sweet factory before getting into the films via work as an extra, his first appearance being in Mademoiselle Midnight. In Los Angeles, he became close friends with another Mexican actor, Luis Antonio Dámaso de Alonso, who would later be known as Gilbert Roland.

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. Later that year they had a daughter, actress Joy Page. Jack L. Warner convinced Ann to file for a quick divorce from Alvarado in Mexico in August 1932.^[1][2] She moved in with Warner perhaps as early as September 1933, and married him in 1936. In 1932, Alvarado was briefly engaged to the musical-comedy star Marilyn Miller, but the marriage did not take place.

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 managed to work regularly, usually cast in secondary Spanish character roles, such as in the 1929 Thornton Wilder adaptation of The Bridge of San Luis Rey. Alvarado appeared on stage in Dinner At Eight at the Belasco Theatre in Los Angeles in 1933.

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 production 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.^[3]

Death

Alvarado died of cancer in 1967, aged 62, in Hollywood, Los Angeles, 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.

Filmography

• The Night Cry (1926)
• A Hero of the Big Snows (1926)
• The Loves of Carmen (1927) - José
• The Monkey Talks (1927)
• No Other Woman (1928)
• The Scarlet Lady (1928) - Prince Nicholas
• The Bridge of San Luis Rey (1929)
• Nobody's Baby (1937)
• Rose of the Rio Grande (1938)
• The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)
• East of Eden (1955)
• Rebel Without a Cause (1955)
• The Old Man and the Sea (1958)

References

1. Gabler, Neal (1989). An Empire of Their Own: How the Jews Invented Hollywood. Doubleday. ISBN 0-385-26557-3.
2. Thomas, Bob (1990). Clown Prince of Hollywood: The Antic Life and Times of Jack L. Warner. McGraw-Hill. ISBN 0-07-064259-1.
3. Don Alvarado at the Internet Movie Database

External links

• Don Alvarado at the Internet Movie Database
• Don Alvarado at AllMovie
• Don Alvarado at Find a Grave
• Don Alvarado at Virtual History