...main protagonist?
I'd prefer to avoid any examples of brownface, if at all possible.
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It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing .
Just to be clear, by brownface, do you mean a white actor playing a hispanic/mexican character? Just asking, cause I get irked when a white actor plays an Indian.
anyway, Pedro Armendáriz is a well regarded mexican actor and you'll find him in several popular westerns including 3 Godfathers & The Wonderful Country. My personal favorite is Fort Apache, he has a co-starring role in it but it's a very important one.
Anthony Quinn is another very popular actor with a laundry list of very popular western titles in his resume. Some of my favorites are Warlock, Last Train from Gun Hill, The Ox-bow Incident & Ride Vaquero!.
Diego Luna has a significant co-starring role in Open Range.
Fernando Lamas, father of Lornezo Lamas, stars in 100 Rifles.
Katy Jurado has prominent roles in lots of westerns including High Noon & Broken Lance and many others.
Just to be clear, by brownface, do you mean a white actor playing a hispanic/mexican character? Just asking, cause I get irked when a white actor plays an Indian.
Indeed. I call a Caucasian/white person playing an Amerindian to be engaging in "redface".
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It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing .
Caesar Romero, born in NYC of Cuban parents, starred as the Cisco Kid in six films from 1939 to 1941. One of the actors who took over the series after Romero was Mexican-born Gilbert Roland who also made six Cisco Kid films. Rare examples of accurate ethnic casting in classic era Hollywood.
The Latino sounding Duncan Renaldo, who made Cisco Kid films and played the character in the TV series, was born in Romania.
mf
Trust me. I’m The Doctor.
The character or the actor?
Tuco Benedito Pacifico Juan Maria Ramirez, also known as "The Rat", in The Good The Bad And The Ugly, possibly the best western ever made, possibly the best movie ever made.
Thank you.
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It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing .
Tuco is a very compelling character, although he may be too villainous. I know Mexicans and Mexican-Americans often got stereotyped with bandit roles, so now I'm also wondering if an American or European western made between the 1900s through 1970s actually had a protagonist that was a Mexican lawman, or otherwise a good fellow if not police.
"A New Kind of Man" (John Foxx, 1980):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tt4oi-PRbN4
Pedro Armendáriz is the most recognizable Hispanic actor I know of in American movies that plays good guys roles, most notably in some John Ford Westerns, Fort Apache and 3 Godfathers.
I think also Anthony Quinn in Man from Del Rio.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7Wmo60KuSE
Probably, it's one of my top westerns, but Eli Wallach isn't Mexican, he's Jewish.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7Wmo60KuSE