Ricardo Cortez

Ricardo Cortez, born Jacob Krantz, was a Jewish-American actor and film director from New York City, also credited as Jack Crane early in his acting career. Hollywood changed his name from Krantz to Cortez to capitalize on his Latin-like features to cater to the popular silent film era's "Latin lovers.” When it began to circulate publicly that Cortez was not actually Latin, the studios attempted to pass him off as French before a final Viennese origin story was promoted. Prior to entering the film business, he was an amateur boxer and worked on Wall Street as a runner.