Pedro Armendariz was born May 9, 1912 (109 years ago today) in Havana, Cuba to a Mexican father and an American mother. After the death of his mother, he went to live with an uncle in Laredo, Texas. While earning a degree at the California Polytechnic State University, Pedro participated in student stage productions.
After graduating, Pedro moved to Mexico and worked a few different jobs. He eventually became a movie actor, starring in films with Katy Jurado and Delores del Rio.
In the late 1940s, Pedro moved to Hollywood, making American movies, including three with the legendary director John Ford. I first became aware of him in the 1948 Ford classic, Fort Apache.
There is a memorable scene in Fort Apache in which Pedro Armendariz, portraying Sergeant Beaufort (U.S. Cavalry), acts as interpreter at a contentious meeting between U.S. Army Lt. Colonel Thursday (Henry Fonda speaking English) and Apache chief Cochise (Miguel Inclan speaking Spanish). I was amazed at Pedro's bi-lingual skills.
Pedro's other Ford pictures were The Fugitive (1947) with Henry Fonda and 3 Godfathers (1948) with John Wayne. Besides Hollywood films, he acted in a number of European movies, such as Lucrece Borgia made in France in 1953.
Pedro's last film is my favorite James Bond movie, From Russia With Love (1963). He portrays a Turkish spy, Kerim Bey, who works for British Intelligence in Istanbul.
Sadly, Pedro was dying of cancer during the filming of From Russia With Love. He succumbed to the disease on June 18, 1963, at 51 years of age, just four months before the film's release in the UK in October.
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