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Re: Ricardo Cortez Q & A with Dan Van Neste on 8-26 & 8-27

Posted: August 27th, 2017, 8:53 pm
by WarrenHymersMoll
Dan, if you had the opportunity to sit down with Ricardo and ask him just ONE question, with the guarantee you would get a complete and honest answer, what would you ask him?

Re: Ricardo Cortez Q & A with Dan Van Neste on 8-26 & 8-27

Posted: August 27th, 2017, 9:35 pm
by DanVanNeste
WarrenHymersMoll wrote:Dan, if you had the opportunity to sit down with Ricardo and ask him just ONE question, with the guarantee you would get a complete and honest answer, what would you ask him?
That’s a hard question, but a superb one. Ric Cortez took many secrets to his grave. It’s a tragedy he was interviewed only a couple of times during the last two decades of his life. He mellowed considerably during his later years, and was much more forthcoming. He would have been a truly great interview! As his biographer, there are many many questions I would like to ask him regarding his career, some of the choices he made, and some of the people he knew and worked with. What stories he could have told!

If you made me choose one question however, it would probably be a personal one. I would ask him how he REALLY felt about his first wife Alma who betrayed and belittled him, and tried her best to sabotage his career comeback after he did his best to help her. In public, he had only kind things to say. I know he loved her and felt bad for her, but he must have been outraged by her conduct toward him, mortified by the headlines she generated including her last arrest for drug possession, and by the shabby way her family treated him at her funeral. Thanks for the question!

Re: Ricardo Cortez Q & A with Dan Van Neste on 8-26 & 8-27

Posted: August 28th, 2017, 3:55 pm
by Hibi
I'm sorry to have missed your online Q&A, but wanted to tell you how much I want to buy and read your book. I've always liked Cortez as an actor and thanks to TCM have been able to watch many of his films. He's best know playing cads, but he was so good playing good guys too. He has such powerful eyes and he knows how to use them. I also find him very sexy! Good luck with the book! Cant wait to read it. Bear Manor publishes a lot of great biographies. Any new projects on the horizon?

Re: Ricardo Cortez Q & A with Dan Van Neste on 8-26 & 8-27

Posted: August 28th, 2017, 7:58 pm
by DanVanNeste
Hibi wrote:I'm sorry to have missed your online Q&A, but wanted to tell you how much I want to buy and read your book. I've always liked Cortez as an actor and thanks to TCM have been able to watch many of his films. He's best know playing cads, but he was so good playing good guys too. He has such powerful eyes and he knows how to use them. I also find him very sexy! Good luck with the book! Cant wait to read it. Bear Manor publishes a lot of great biographies. Any new projects on the horizon?
Thank you for asking! So glad you’re a Cortez fan! You have excellent taste! I do hope you enjoy the book. The Magnificent Heel was a very special project for me, and I am thrilled by the response to it thus far. When I embarked on the Cortez project in 2012, I set two main goals I hoped to achieve. The first was to pay tribute to a fine, unsung actor by presenting a balanced, full bodied, warts and all portrait of him, and the other was to inspire a renewed interest in his work. If I have achieved one or both of those goals with this book, I will consider the project an enormous success.

Up until the Cortez book was actually published in March, I was busy working on it with the designer and publisher. Since then, I’ve been largely preoccupied promoting it. However, I must admit, I have begun to contemplate what’s next. I actually have two things in mind. For a very long time now, people have been urging me to put together a collection of my articles. For years, I did in-depth pieces for variety of publications, most especially Classic Images and Films of the Golden Age magazines. Many of my articles included original interviews with my subjects, most of whom are now deceased. I’m really proud of the work I did, and would like to have some of my best articles preserved in book form. Now seems a good time to pursue this project. In addition, I would like to do another biography. At present, I have two possible subjects in mind, each of whom were active in the 1930’s (my favorite film decade). In my opinion, each has special plusses and minuses as a potential biographical subject. I’m currently trying to decide between them. I will be making a final decision shortly. Hopefully, my two new books will not take as long to do as the Cortez volume! LOL

Re: Ricardo Cortez Q & A with Dan Van Neste on 8-26 & 8-27

Posted: August 29th, 2017, 12:11 am
by Moraldo Rubini
DanVanNeste wrote:...I would like to do another biography. At present, I have two possible subjects in mind, each of whom were active in the 1930’s (my favorite film decade). In my opinion, each has special plusses and minuses as a potential biographical subject. I’m currently trying to decide between them. I will be making a final decision shortly.
Let us know if you need us to vote! :wink:

Re: Ricardo Cortez Q & A with Dan Van Neste on 8-26 & 8-27

Posted: August 29th, 2017, 7:11 am
by moira finnie
DanVanNeste wrote: I actually have two things in mind. For a very long time now, people have been urging me to put together a collection of my articles. For years, I did in-depth pieces for variety of publications, most especially Classic Images and Films of the Golden Age magazines. Many of my articles included original interviews with my subjects, most of whom are now deceased. I’m really proud of the work I did, and would like to have some of my best articles preserved in book form. Now seems a good time to pursue this project. In addition, I would like to do another biography. At present, I have two possible subjects in mind...
Oh, Dan! I really hope you can do both. Thanks again for coming back to answer one more question.