Carlos Montalbán y Merino (June 5, 1904 – March 28, 1991) was a Mexican character actor.
Montalbán was born in Torreón in Coahuila, Mexico, the son of Ricarda Merino Jiménez and Genaro Balbino Montalbán Busano, a store manager.[1][2] His parents were Spanish.
Montalbán was the older brother of actor Ricardo Montalbán and is remembered for portraying two different characters named "Vargas" in well-remembered films; The Out-of-Towners (1970) starring Jack Lemmon, and Woody Allen's Bananas (1971). His best remembered role is likely in the American boxing drama The Harder They Fall (1956), where he plays the sympathetic manager of a heavyweight contender.[3]
He appeared as "El Exigente" in a series of coffee advertisements for Savarin Coffee in the 1960s and 1970s. Montalbán was also a renowned voice-over actor and announcer, best known as the official Spanish language voice for Marlboro cigarettes worldwide. He also provided translated Spanish narration for documentaries produced by the US Information Agency in the 1960s.[4]
Montalbán died on March 28, 1991, in his Manhattan home in New York City of cardiovascular disease and was survived by his wife Mary, a New Yorker,[2] two brothers, Pedro and the actor Ricardo Montalbán, and a sister, Carmen, also from Torreon, Mexico.[3][5]