What’s driving you crazy?

Believe it or not, I was told in another posting that I look like the Cisco Kid.

Thanks!

I hope the Cisco Kid is OK with that.  Although, you have to ask - which one?

The original film Cisco Kid, Warren Baxter, actually made movie history.

In Old Arizona is a 1929 Western film, directed by Irving Cummings and Raoul Walsh, nominated for five Academy Awards, including Best Picture. The film, which was based around the character of the Cisco Kid in the story The Caballero’s Way by O. Henry, was a major innovation in Hollywood: it was the first major Western to use the new technology of sound and the first talkie to be filmed outdoors. … In Old Arizona was also instrumental in developing the image of the singing cowboy, with its star, Warner Baxter, singing My Tonia. Baxter went on to win the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance. Wikipedia on In Old Arizona

Baxter went on to make a series of Cisco films.
Lady killer Cesar Romero took the reins of Cisco in 1939.  The movie was The Cisco Kid and the Lady.  It was a turning point for Romero.

Romero played “Latin lovers” in films from the 1930s until the 1950s, usually in supporting roles. Initially, he attracted attention in Hollywood when he starred as Cisco Kid in six westerns made between 1939 and 1941.

Romero later became best known to a new generation as “The Joker” on the 1960’s Batman series.
Perhaps, the most famous Cisco is Duncan Reynaldo. He took over the movie role from Romero in 1945 with The Cisco Kid Returns. His fame, though, is more from the television series, filmed when he was in his fifties (¡excelente!).

Renaldo returned to the role for the popular 156-episode Ziv Television series (1950-1956), notable as one of the first TV series filmed in color. His sidekick, Pancho was played by Leo Carillo.
Wikipedia on The Cisco Kid

In 1950 Renaldo began playing the role in a popular television series that ran until 1956. In the age of black and white television, the show was filmed in color. As the Cisco Kid, Renaldo roamed the Old West on a black and white horse named “Diablo”, accompanied by his constant companion “Pancho”, played by Leo Carrillo. The Cisco Kid always helped where needed, and unlike most westerns he never killed anyone.
Wikipedia on Duncan Reynaldo

Ironically, it was Duncan Reynaldo and not Romero who took on the cinema Cisco with The Gay Cavalier in 1946 (by the way, I nicked the poster from a site where it is for sale.  Click on the poster if you are interested).

Beginning in the 1940s, Roland’s roles became smaller but critics began to take notice of his acting and he was praised for his supporting roles in John Huston’s We Were Strangers (1949), The Bad and the Beautiful (1952), Thunder Bay (1953), and Cheyenne Autumn (1964). He also appeared in a series of films in the mid 1940s as the popular character “The Cisco Kid“. Catholic viewers probably know him best as Hugo, the agnostic (and totally fictional) friend of the three shepherd children in The Miracle of Our Lady of Fatima, which is based on the apparitions of Our Lady of Fatima in 1917. In 1953 he stared in the color epic Beneath the 12-Mile Reef as Greek-American sponge diver Mike Petrakis. His last appearance was in the 1982 Western Barbarosa.

Believe it or not, the latest Cisco Kid was a television movie starring Jimmy Smits in 1994.  Yep, Jimmy Smits.  Pancho was played by Cheech Marin.

This update of the 1950 western TV series changes Cisco and Pancho from wandering heroes of the old west to somewhat anti-”gringo” Mexican revolutionaries. Written by Christopher E. Meadows {cmeadows@nyx.cs.du.edu} IMBD.com

Curiously enough, even though the most famous Cisco Kid actors were in their forties or fifties.  This is how the character’s creator O’Henry describes him.

The Kid was twenty-five, looked twenty; and a careful insurance company would have estimated the probable time of his demise at, say, twenty-six.
http://thenostalgialeague.com/olmag/cisco.html

Not surprisingly, Hollywood’s version of the Robin Hood slow to fight contrasts with the O’Henry character greatly.  The television version, where the Cisco Kid never kills is a totally different person than the one in O’Henry’s “The Caballero”.

He killed for the love of it—because he was quick-tempered—to avoid arrest—for his own amusement—any reason that came to his mind would suffice. He had escaped capture because he could shoot five-sixths of a second sooner than any sheriff or ranger in the service, and because he rode a speckled roan horse that knew every cowpath in the mesquite and pear thickets from San Antonio to Matamoras.
http://thenostalgialeague.com/olmag/cisco.html

With the exception of the O’Henry descriptions, I’ll take any of the above as a compliment. Thanks.