Born Ricardo Gonzalo Pedro Montalban y Merino in ... Mexico City, Montalban spent part of his youth in the U.S. The long-legged, sad, handsome, and curly haired actor start worked as a bit punter on Broadway formerly returning to Mexico in the early '40s and launching a steam fly there. By 1947, he had returned to the States and signed with MGM. That year, Montalban played his first leading situation opposite Cyd Charisse in the tender musical Fiesta (1947). It would be the first of many roles in which he would amuse oneself with b consider a passionate singing and dancing "Latin Lover." He and Charisse again teamed up as dancers in the Esther Williams musical be unfeasible production in On an Island With You (1948). At one point, it was a fling-up between Montalban and associate MGM "LL" Fernando Lamas as to which was more in demand.

It would not be until 1949 formerly Montalban had the occasion to play a non-romantic capacity as a agent who gets revenge upon the killers of his consort in Purfle Commotion. His second serious post in Battleground (1949) ranks among his first performances. By the late '50s, he had adorn come of a courage actor, often sling in ethnic roles, uniquely that of a decorous Japanese Kabuki actor in Sayonara (1957). He had again appeared on television since the fashionable '50s, but did not appear regularly until the mid-'70s. In 1976, Montalban earned an Emmy during his portrayal of a Sioux chief in the television miniseries How the West Was Won. In the early '70s he was character of a touring troupe that be familiar with dramatic excerpts from Shaw's Don Juan in Hell. In 1982, Montalban reprised a role he had made famed on the original Star Trek TV series as the pitiless Khan to star in the subscribe to Star Trek feature, The Wrath of Khan. In the '80s, Montalban only sporadically appeared in feature films.

His telly career also slowed, though he sporadically appeared on series such as The Colbys (1985-1987) and Joy Aid Us! (1994). Montalban has written an autobiography, Reflections: A Lifeblood in Two Worlds (1980). Confined to a wheelchair after a 1993 spinal operation left him paralyzed from the waist down, Montalban remiained in gentle robustness despite being in unwearied suffering, and continued to cause trouble an efficacious role in promoting Nostros - a non-profit format founded by Montalban in 1970 and dedicated to improving the representation of Latinos within the entertainment labour. In the overdue 1990s and at daybreak 2000s Moltalban's career recieved something of a jiffy wind when he began performing vocal engender on such enlivened video receiver series' as Freakazoid!, Dora the Explorer, and Kim Tenable, with a role as the kindly grandfather in Robert Rodriguez's Espy Kids 2: Island of Lost Dreams and Spy Kids 3-D: Game Beyond even giving the wheelchair-resolved actor an opportunity to triumphantly rise in a minute again thanks to the devilry of specialized effects.

Additional vocal pressurize in the 2006 animated family adventure The Ant Bully continued to keep Montalban engaged without considering his material limitations. His mate, Carlos Montalban, was also an actor.