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January 15, 2007
All look same: swarthy guy edition
Mrs. Guesswork and I are watching The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad, starring the distinctly un-Arab-looking Kerwin Mathews as the Iraqi Sinbad. I got to thinking about who you typically see getting generic "swarthy guy" roles:
| Actor | Actual Ethnicity | Ethnicities Played |
| Art Malik | Pakistani | Indian (Booty Call), Arab (True Lies), Greek (Year of the Comet) |
| Tony Shalhoub | Lebanese | Lebanese (The Siege), Italian (Big Night) |
| Ricardo Montalban | Mexican | Hispanic (Spy Kids and others), Japanese (Sayonara), Indian (Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan) (thanks to Wikipedia) |
I'm not sure how much of an improvement this is over the days when you could have Charleton Heston playing a Mexican.
Posted by ekr at January 15, 2007 8:40 PM | Filed under: Misc
Comments
Don't forget Anthony Quinn as the other ubiquitous swarthy guy, and John Wayne as Ghengis Khan!
Posted by: Fraud Guy at January 16, 2007 8:12 AM
Or the neverending stream of European guys that played Charlie Chan. (Werner Oland was the main actor in the films.) Famed eco-actor Ed Begley Jr.'s father played him in the radio version.
Posted by: Terence at January 16, 2007 9:29 AM