Leo Carrillo Actor
Height 5' 10"
Spouse: Edith Haeselbarth (1940 - 1953) Child: Antoinette
Leo Carrillo's enduring fame derives from his characterization of Pancho on the "Cisco Kid" TV show, but there was much more to his show-business career. A former newspaper cartoonist, Carrillo first attracted attention as a dialect comedian in vaudeville. He broke into movies in the late 1920s, just as sound was coming in, and most often played a malapropistic Latin character. He was sometimes a heavy, as in Girl of the Rio (1932), but more often played the fool. His particular brand of buffoonery must be seen to be appreciated in Moonlight and Pretzels (1933), Viva Villa! (1934), Love Me Forever, In Caliente (both 1935), History Is Made at Night (1937), Manhattan MerryGo-Round, Girl of the Golden West, Too Hot to Handle (all 1938), Lillian Russell (1940, as Tony Pastor), American Empire (1942), Ghost Catchers (1944), and The Fugitive (1947), among others. He first played Pancho to Duncan Renaldo's Cisco in a 1950 series of B Westerns, before achieving latter-day celebrity in the longrunning television show. Proud of his Californian heritage, he wrote a book, The California I Love in 1961.
Trivia Leo Carrillo State Park and Leo Carrillo beach, both in California, were named after the actor, who also served on the State Park and Recreation Commission. He was related by blood and marriage to a long line of distinguished original Californians.
For all the stereotypical Latinos he portrayed on screen, Leo Carrillo was actually an intelligent, literate man, the scion of an old, respected Los Angeles family who could trace his heritage back to the conquistadores.
