Valentin de Vargas


Valentin de Vargas was an actor, known for playing a character menacing Janet Leigh in Orson Welles' Touch of Evil and playing Louis Francisco Garcia Lopez in Hatari!. He appeared in multiple motion pictures from the mid-1950s to the late 1990s.

Biography

After serving in the United States Army, de Vargas made his film debut in The Blackboard Jungle while still attending Loyola Marymount University. He had responded to a flyer posted at Loyola to audition for a high school student role in the film. He had a variety of uncredited appearances in films and appeared in several television series until Touch of Evil in 1958, where he also met his first wife, actress Arlene McQuade. He travelled to Mexico, where he played one of the Mexican bandidos in The Magnificent Seven.
In the 1960s he appeared on television programs including Bonanza, Daniel Boone, The Wild Wild West, Gunsmoke, Death Valley Days, The High Chaparral, , Barnaby Jones, The Streets of San Francisco, and Dallas. He later operated a realty firm, Schubert-DeVargas Realty, in Santa Fe, New Mexico. In 1962 he joined the cast of international stars in Howard Hawks' Hatari!.

Death

After suffering for many months from myelodysplastic syndrome, he died on June 10, 2013, aged 78, in Tulsa, Oklahoma. His interment was at Santa Fe National Cemetery.
His first wife was actress Arlene McQuade, who died in 2014. He was a nephew of actor Don Alvarado

Partial filmography