"I confess, I fell a little bit in love": ‘Joker’ Cesar Romero's backstory, charm & Hollywood career w/author Samuel Garza Bernstein
Executive Editor Interviews Samuel Garza Bernstein, Author of Cesar Romero: The Joker Is Wild
Hollywood and the entertainment industry have long mesmerized the world by turning beautiful people—skilled at acting and performing—into stars. But in the mid decades of the twentieth century, as the talkies gave way to the golden era of moviemaking, and through the supremacy of television in the seventies and eighties, one actor seemed omnipresent: Cesar Romero—an astounding 110 movies and 250 scripted television episodes over 60 years. From roles opposite Shirley Temple to Batman’s Joker on ABC to Falcon Crest, Cesar was beloved by generations of viewers for his beauty, commanding presence, and graciousness.
In anticipation of the release of Cesar Romero: The Joker Is Wild later this month, we asked Foreword’s Matt Sutherland to connect with author Samuel Garza Bernstein to discuss the life of this extraordinary actor. Samuel was gracious enough to accept.
The son of a sugar baron, Cesar Romero’s childhood was anything but a path to acting. But when the sugar market crashed in the 1920s—he was thirteen or so—his future prospects changed dramatically. Was this a traumatic time or did he step into acting and the role of provider a few years later as naturally as he danced and later laughed maniacally as the Joker?
I can’t believe his family’s change of fortunes wasn’t traumatic—which is not the same as confirming that it was … Throughout his life, Cesar made everything look easy, and rarely, if ever, talked about his struggles. There’s no childhood diary where he wrote about his fears or pain. What we know for certain is that his wealthy, powerful father basically had a nervous breakdown when his business failed. The Romero family was traditional, patriarchal, and very conscious of their social position and image. His father’s full withdrawal from life happened over a period of time, but the first crash marked a definite, abrupt shift in the entire dynamic of the family. And yet I think Cesar’s realization that he would have to become the breadwinner occurred to him over time. The family stopped talking about him taking over the business, because there was no business, and they began talking about other possibilities—law, finance, things like that. Perhaps, too, it was a little like the John Boorman film, Hope and Glory, where the kid feels free and audacious in London as the Nazis try to bomb the Brits into submission. A recurring theme in Cesar’s interviews over the years was that attending eighth grade in Bradley Beach, New Jersey, was like a fantastic adventure.
Let’s not forget that his maternal grandfather is none other than José Martí, Cuban hero of the war of independence against Spain. Did that connection mark Romero’s life in a special way or was it more of an interesting tidbit to mention in interviews?
The honor and pride of being a descendant of José Martí was central to Cesar’s sense of himself. When Cesar’s lineage became part of his press story, reporters called Martí his mother’s godfather, but almost immediately, with no explanation, Martí morphed into her father. It’s strange looking back to realize that earlier generations—these people we think of as being rigid in their attitudes—were not always as by-the-book as we think. Being illegitimate didn’t seem to hamper his mother’s social position.
There is also no real explanation for the fact that Cesar and his family were so accepted among white high society. Cesar being a handsome single man who could dance could account for some of it, but he really was accepted far beyond the level other Latinos might have been. A Catholic, Cuban descendant without much money was not considered a suitable dancing partner for the daughters of WASP debutantes, but everyone loved Cesar. Either he was special and privileged, or WASPs in the early twentieth century weren’t as prejudiced as we imagine. I think it’s more the former than the latter. Cesar carried himself as a man of importance and others took their cues from him. I think his lineage played a big part in his sense of himself as someone who mattered.
As a young teen, Romero developed code-switching talent bouncing between a prestigious East Coast prep school and the “regular” kids at public school in New Jersey. Did this skill serve him well as an adult, even while he always remained “private about his private life,” as you write?
Code switching is everything for any actor. You have to read the room the minute you walk into an audition. Do they want you to be friendly or business-like? Smooth or earnest? There are a million cues if you develop your observational skills. In Hollywood, he could compare hunting rifles with Darryl F. Zanuck and talk about hunting as easily as he could go dancing and talk about fashion with Joan Crawford. He was thoroughly comfortable in his own skin and could easily match whatever expectations he believed others had of him. Plus, LGBTQIA+ people who grow up in the closet learn how to code-switch almost from birth.
Show biz meant something different in the late 1920s (when Romero was getting started) than it does now. Can you talk about the period in New York when he takes the dance steps taught to him by Victoria, his family’s Black maid, and uses that talent as a way to access elite social and Broadway circles?
I don’t think Cesar had a clear plan at first. He loved dancing, and as he set out to make his way in the world, going out to balls and cotillions was a way of eating well and having fun. His partnership with Lisbeth Higgins in early 1927 was the game-changer. She was an iconoclastic debutante from an unusually unconventional high-society family. When she bankrolled their partnership, it put Cesar on a path to a professional career as an entertainer—an inchoate idea up until that point at the grand old age of nineteen. They played endless tea dances, balls, and afternoon entertainments. Vaudeville was thriving but somewhat down-market. Theater and opera demanded more focus and effort.
Attending a society party that also offered entertainment acts allowed people to come and go as they pleased, young women could attend without partners since the events themselves had plenty of chaperones, and the experience was more interactive than just being the audience in the dark. Those events are where Cesar cut his teeth as a performer.
What was the nature of his acting/movie-making workload through the 1930s, ’40s, and ’50s?
Cesar was supposed to become a superstar Latin Lover heartthrob in 1935 with the release of The Devil Is a Woman opposite Marlene Dietrich. It was a continuation of the kinds of roles he had done on stage in Strictly Dishonorable and Dinner at Eight, among others, where he was called upon to play alluring men from various Latino countries. Especially at the time, before international travel and globalization, Americans tended to think of Mexicans, Spaniards, Cubans, and Italians as the same.
“Swarthy.” “The Other.” Cesar was objectified in all the ways a female sex symbol would have been. Some of the prose that fan magazine writers employed was both embarrassingly flowery and surprisingly carnal. Take this from a Philadelphia newspaper: “Since Caesar Romero provided a host of life-hungry women a new, tangible haven for the cravings of their tired hearts by his anatomical attractiveness and histrionic accomplishments as the flashing eyed, romantic, and dashing libidinous Italian singer in Strictly Dishonorable at the Broad Street Theatre, the old credo, which reached its peak during the meteoric career of Rudolph Valentino—that all Italians are passionate lovers, improvements on Adonis, and generally sizzling papas—is being revived with a vengeance. And if anyone dares to doubt in the least the authenticity of this notion, its proponents look at the poor simpleton with an ill-concealed glint of pity in their eyes and point to Romero as positive proof of all contentions in this direction.”
That’s … a lot.
The Devil Is a Woman is demented but fascinating. Romero is dashing and wildly romantic. Dietrich is a Spanish cigarette factory worker turned dangerous courtesan who destroys men without care or concern. Watching the drama play out in all its absurdity, it’s like director Josef von Sternberg has never met an actual human being or is fundamentally disinterested in whatever it is mere mortals feel and do. Nothing feels even vaguely lifelike. Yet even if the film had been more relatable or comprehensible to audiences, its arch, stylized, glamorous take on masochistic love was badly out of step with what Depression-era audiences wanted to see. And in Cesar’s case, the Latin Lover wasn’t as popular as the homespun he-man had become. Even films about high society required a common touch. William Powell and Myrna Loy were spectacularly wealthy in The Thin Man films, but seemingly earthy and approachable.
Because Cesar’s bid at Latin Lover stardom flopped, he was able to broaden his range considerably in the 1930s. He is a red-blooded American gigolo when he makes his first Hollywood film, The Thin Man, but graduates to gangsters (of the sexy and cuddly variety as well as psychopathic monsters); he is a con man, a detective, a dancer, a singer, rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief (literally). And his Cuban heritage apparently qualifies him as Indian, Arab, French, Mexican, German, Spanish, Brazilian, Portuguese, Greek, British, and Italian, as well as Cuban—and he plays good guys and bad guys in all nationalities.
He made two Shirley Temple films that are classics, Wee Willie Winkie and The Little Princess, several musicals that will live forever, especially Week-End in Havana opposite Carmen Miranda and Springtime in the Rockies opposite Betty Grable, and he starred as the Cisco Kid in six films that were enormously popular. After the war, he moved into more mature characters, including Cortéz in Captain from Castile and character roles like the Portuguese fisherman in Deep Waters.
In the introduction, you write that Romero’s story is “a veritable primer in the benefits of relentlessly looking for the silver lining when everything around you seems like it is turning to crap—a state of mind that keeps Romero going through any number of setbacks and tragedies.” Would you mind speaking to that thought a bit?
When The Devil Is a Woman flopped and Cesar was constantly being loaned out by Universal, it seemed like his future might not be too bright. Instead of reacting with panic, Cesar chose to develop a close friendship with Darryl F. Zanuck at Fox and to treat his loan-outs as great opportunities to play different kinds of characters. Zanuck realized Fox could plug Cesar into anything and so Cesar’s career stumbles came to seem like advantages. Cesar parlayed what could seem like a career slump into a Fox contract that lasted from the late 1930s to the early 1950s. When Fox canceled his contract in 1951, the silver lining was that it prompted Cesar to develop a television persona that would keep him working for another four decades. Instead of looking at the end of his years at the studio as something negative, he looked for the next opportunity. To some extent, that’s just basic survival.
But Cesar’s ability to manage these transitions with grace and humor tended to make each event into a story of how things always turned out for the best. This belied his very real fears about continuing to earn enough money to take care of his extended family, all of whom looked to him for support. He was always the swan—graceful and at ease on the surface, peddling furiously underneath. But he did have a generally sunny disposition. As some of the other Batman villain actors decried being stereotyped, Cesar looked at it very differently. Maybe he would be typecast as a campy character to some, but the silver lining? People would remember him forever.
And then, he lands the role of the Joker in a new television series based on the Batman comic book series and shockingly, after the first couple episodes in 1966, more than 60 percent of American households with televisions are watching the show. Can you give us a sense of the Batman phenomenon in the United States at that time and Romero’s extraordinary role as a maniacal bad guy?
Cesar was used to public interest from the time he was a teenager, but nothing could prepare him for the onslaught of attention that came with Batman. Suddenly he was on lunch boxes, school supplies, board games, T-shirts, jigsaw puzzles, and trading cards; he was an action figure and a Halloween mask; toys inspired by him include joy buzzers, squirting flowers, and trick guns; and the character goes from being one of many Batman villains to rivaling the popularity of the Caped Crusaders themselves.
For the next three decades, until his death in 1994, people would stop him on the street and in restaurants, airports, shopping malls, and hospitals and ask him to do the laugh. Ever gracious, Romero always happily complied.
The role made him a beloved part of the American cultural story. I live in Portugal much of the year now. I like to ask people I meet about the subjects I’m writing about. No one here could say who Cesar Romero was. Mention the Joker from TV, however, and their eyes light up as they go into his laugh.* I Love Lucy* was never a thing here and no one knows who Lucille Ball was. But they know the Joker.
I had an aha moment when you mentioned that the Joker’s coloring and grotesque smile was partially based on The Man Who Laughs, a Victor Hugo novel adapted into a silent German film with Conrad Veidt playing the lead role. Many years ago, on a Hugo kick, I read that novel and won’t ever be able to shake its twistedness out of my head. And then, of course, Jack Nicholson, Heath Ledger, and Joaquin Phoenix also contributed to the Joker mystique. What is it about that character that is so spellbinding?
I think the razor-thin line between laughing and screaming is an almost primordial part of our emotional makeup. The grotesquerie of a constant lurid grin just touches something horrible—some embedded terror we have, perhaps of being out of control. Cesar Romero’s Joker didn’t really owe much to The Man Who Laughs. There was nothing in his performance that touched on those kinds of primal fears. I would argue that, in retrospect, Jack Nicholson’s portrayal didn’t really either. Once Heath Ledger came along, though, the Joker returned firmly to the horrors of his origins.
With his lengthy credit list of acclaimed theater and film appearances over so many decades, were you torn over how much attention to give his Joker role—the book’s subtitle, no less—in this biography?
I want people to buy the book. Without the Joker, there is no book in terms of publishing. So, no, I never felt torn. I looked at it as an opportunity to draw in Batman fans and give them Cesar’s whole origin story. So, yes, you’re going to get Batman if you buy this book, but I’m also going to take you through the history of show business in the twentieth century.
Was there ever a time when Romero came to regret the popularity of his Joker role?
Not that I know of. Literally his only public complaint was the headaches from wearing the wig. And let’s be real, Cesar Romero wasn’t hoping to do Shaw and Shakespeare one day. He had no grand ambitions for a career as a classic actor like Burgess Meredith, who did somewhat regret playing the Penguin. Cesar saw himself as an entertainer above all else, and the Joker was magnificently entertaining to billions of people across the planet. Think about that from his perspective. He grew up thinking he was going to be a sugar machinery merchant. He started as a ballroom dancer. He became a Latin Lover and a stalwart contract player at the height of the studio system era. He could never have imagined being beloved by billions of people. For him I think there was absolutely no downside to that.
But things go very quiet in his acting career for a couple years starting in 1974 and Romero opens a restaurant and a couple menswear stores. Was this out of financial need or did he just feel the need to stay busy? Did the business ventures make him any money?
Yes, he needed the money, but those business ventures almost ruined him financially—which takes us to the next question.
In 1985, the stars align again with Falcon Crest. You write that the television show’s importance in Romero’s later years cannot be overstated. Why so?
Financially Falcon Crest saved Cesar’s bacon. He made over fifty episodes, earning in the seven figures. It gave him security when he needed it the most. He wasn’t destitute by any means, but he really didn’t have much of a cushion. After Falcon Crest, he could breathe easy. But even more importantly, the feeling of emotional connection brought him enormous pleasure. He hadn’t really had it in over thirty-five years, since leaving Fox—the intimacy that comes from spending so much time with the same people over days, and weeks, and months, and years.
Reporting to the set at Falcon Crest put him in a system that ran like an old Hollywood studio set. It was congenial, constructive, and efficient. People were on time and prepared and treated each other with respect. That’s certainly what Jane Wyman did, feeling it was her responsibility, as the star of the show, to set the tone. Cesar felt at the center of the business again.
The activity and press attention a high-profile gig like Falcon Crest entailed also meant he was invited to all of the big-ticket events again. He presented a Golden Globe to Whoopi Goldberg for The Color Purple. That doesn’t happen if you’re just picking up random guest shots on Love Boat. The work, the money, and the prestige … it was all wonderful.
Often, you make reference to Romero’s extraordinary range as an actor: “He has the good looks of a leading man yet can also play character roles, and he is comfortable sliding in and out of seemingly any genre—romantic comedy, crime drama, mysteries, costume pictures and, soon, musicals. He also has the amply demonstrated ability to generate press coverage.” And, later, you write, “He returns to his trusty pot of Egyptian #2 pancake makeup to play Ram Dass, the swarthy mysterious benefactor of Shirley Temple in her big-budget color film debut, The Little Princess.” Is there an actor working today who shows the versatility of Cesar Romero?
Not in terms of ethnicities certainly, and that’s a good thing. Although the anti-woke crowd gets quite annoyed, we’re in a time when people want to see themselves represented by actors from their own culture. That means we often get far more nuance and variety. In Cesar’s day there was very little effort made to accurately portray different cultures and races.
In terms of encompassing a wide range of genres, however, I think that’s something that a lot of actors do now—most notably Meryl Streep, who plays drama, comedy, musicals, TV projects, and anything else that she wants to do. Cesar was very unusual in his day because he was a handsome leading man who also played character parts. That’s far less unusual now. Leading men from Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio to Timothée Chalamet and Tom Holland seek to hone their acting chops with leading character roles.
Romero supported his extended family for decades, providing them with a home in Hollywood, putting his brother through engineering school at USC, and so much more. All of which speaks very highly of him, of course, but throughout the book, Romero seems universally liked—even adored—by everyone he knows and works with, including your coverage of his service in WWII. Will you please go out of your way to tell us what a swell guy Cesar Romero was?
I wonder if some of his graciousness was a variation of noblesse oblige. His earliest experiences were as the eldest son of a wealthy man who cared about his place in society. Truly well-bred people were raised to understand they had special obligations because of their inherited privilege. (That this precept is almost universally ignored today is a shame.) Add to that Cesar’s experience with having the rug pulled out from under his family. He drove a delivery truck, among other working-class jobs, before he started working as a performer. So he had direct knowledge of what it was like to be an employee working at someone’s whim.
Cesar also had a natural impulse and ability to put others at ease. He believed his good fortune in the entertainment industry obligated him to pay it forward. He didn’t like complaining, which automatically puts him in the category of a more pleasant companion than most. There is also a rather less sunny aspect of how he made his way in the world that left everyone with a positive impression: He wasn’t forthcoming about his personal life or his inner feelings, leading him to ask people many questions about themselves. We all respond well to people who seem genuinely interested in us.
It seems Romero was one of Hollywood’s biggest heartthrobs, with hundreds of marriage proposals arriving in the mail monthly and gossip columns covering his every female tablemate, as if she might be “the one”. Do you believe his homosexuality was truly unsuspected, or was this just a different era of reporting—reminiscent of beat writers covering up the shenanigans of baseball players like hard-drinking Mickey Mantle—and he was being protected?
I’d guess that Hollywood and New York columnists were probably in the dark through much of the 1930s. As time went on, however, they figured it out one way or another. So when you think of people like Louella Parsons, Hedda Hopper, Walter Winchell, and the like, they knew. They also probably admired him for being so discreet. If you’re going to be a “fag,” at least make sure you don’t let the public know and don’t get arrested.
Cesar had no scandals, no mentions in Confidential magazine, no arrests for loitering or lewd and lascivious behavior—no public footprint at all that revealed his orientation. He socialized with straight couples as an “extra man” and was never a part of gatherings like George Cukor’s pool parties. Journalists in the rest of the country may well have believed him to be straight to the end. Certainly in my own research, many people reacted with surprise.
As it turns out, throughout his life, there is never a romantic partner connected to Romero, at least publicly. It’s difficult not to feel sad for him, knowing how much he loved and valued relationships with men and women alike. What thoughts are you left with regarding his romantic life?
I hope he experienced true romantic companionship. I cannot claim some special knowledge about his relationship with Tyrone Power, but I do believe there was a deep love between them. I hope with all my heart, however, that it was not his only love; that there was some other great and enduring love or loves in his life. It pains me to think perhaps there was not. In looking at his work, family life, and social life over the decades, it is hard to see much room for a long-term partner somewhere in that mix. It is clear that he found great joy and satisfaction in his work and in his family. Maybe that was enough—more than enough—and perhaps he had no regrets. He didn’t tend to dwell on such things.
Okay, 110 movies, 250 scripted television appearances, 150-plus appearances as himself on talk and games shows and in documentaries, and many dozens of posthumous appearances in projects using archival footage. That’s 500 professional credits, and you basically document every one. Let’s talk about your research and the boxes of popcorn you consumed.
Well, I came to the party with a deep love for classic Hollywood, so I had already seen some of Cesar’s major films. But taking the deep dive into the full breadth of his work did require many, many hours of watching his film and television work, encompassing many things I wouldn’t have seen otherwise. If I weren’t writing the book, for instance, it would never have occurred to me to watch The Return of the Cisco Kid, his first appearance in a Cisco Kid film before playing the title character. Here he is Cisco’s Mexican sidekick—a hirsute, unkempt drunk, and something of a scoundrel. He’s like a different person.
Similarly, I wouldn’t have seen him on The Tracey Ullman Show, where his meta take on the Latin Lover is adroitly self-aware. Coming into the project I was a better authority on MGM and Warner Bros. films, partly because of having written about Joan Crawford. This book gave me a chance to look at the evolution of films made at 20th Century Fox—an investigation that has continued. I just finished a manuscript for a book about Roddy McDowall, who was also at Fox. Maybe I need to write about someone under contract at Universal or Columbia. I know much less about the bulk of films from those studios. I’m not talking about the big movies that anyone with an affinity for classic film would have seen, I mean the bread-and-butter programmers.
I also had access to Cesar’s carefully preserved scrapbooks. Fox gave him bound volumes of every bit of press material they had on each of his films for them. And his sister pasted all the early clippings into leather volumes. That’s how I pieced together his theater and ballroom career before he went to Hollywood in 1934.
I’ve also learned how to directly take digital images from films and restore them to a state where they can be printed. So there’s something about looking at an actor over and over again as you search for the right frame to pull an image from that makes you feel very close to them indeed. I spent hours toggling back and forth looking at Cesar in closeup. There he was, smiling at me. I confess, I fell a little bit in love.
From my perch at Foreword Reviews, I commend you on your many, many, many dozens of in-depth, fast-paced, critical reviews of almost all of Romero’s work. From one reviewer to another, I know that’s not an easy job. How was that aspect of this project? Can you give us a top-five list of your favorite Cesar Romero films?
In chronological order: Wee Willie Winkie, Captain from Castile, Deep Waters, Ocean’s Eleven, and Lust in the Dust. In them he plays (respectively) an Indian chieftain battling the British, Hernán Cortés, a Portuguese fisherman, a suave racketeer who outwits the Rat Pack, and a formerly Jewish Catholic priest searching for gold in the Old West.
Any last thoughts? What do you hope readers take away from The Joker is Wild? And, is there another writing project currently on your desk?
I hope people love Cesar as much as I do and that he comes alive for readers. I tend to write in present tense even though the events are long ago, like I’m telling the story to a friend. When I share my own experiences, I find that I almost always tell them in present tense: “So, I’m on this cruise, right? And I end up dancing with Boy George!”
As I shared earlier, my next book is about Roddy McDowall. The manuscript is in the legal vetting and editing stage now, and Kensington has it slated for publication in June 2026. Currently, I’m working on season four outlines for a show called After Forever that streams on Amazon. I’m the co-showrunner on that with Kevin Spirtas. He and the late Michael Slade created the show and ran seasons one and two together. Michael wrote the episodes for season three before he died, and I came on to work with Kevin during production. I’m writing all the episodes for the new season. It’s a wonderful show, winner of six Emmys, and one of the first drama series that gets into sex, love, and loss among gay men in their 50s and 60s.
Matt Sutherland
