American actor
Nestor Paiva |
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| Born | Nestor Caetano Paiva
(1905-06-30)June 30, 1905
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| Died | September 9, 1966(1966-09-09) (aged 61)
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| Resting place | Forest Lawn Memorial Park (Hollywood Hills) |
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| Years active | 1937–1966 |
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| Spouse |
Maxine Yvette Kurtzman
( m. 1941) |
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| Children | 2 |
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Nestor Paiva (June 30, 1905 – September 9, 1966) was an American stage, radio, film and television actor of Portuguese descent. He performed in over 400 motion pictures either as an extra, a bit player, or as a significant supporting character.[2] He also appears in such roles in a variety of television series produced during the 1950s and early 1960s. Among his notable screen appearances is his recurring role as the innkeeper Teo Gonzales in Walt Disney's late 1950s televised Spanish Western series Zorro, as well as in its adapted theatrical release The Sign of Zorro (1958). Paiva also appears as the boat captain Lucas in the Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954) and in that horror film's sequel Revenge of the Creature (1955).
Early years and stage and radio work
Born in California in 1905, Nestor was the tenth of twelve children of Mariana Luísa (née Freitas) and Francisco "Frank" Caetano Paiva.[3] Both of his parents were natives of Portugal, who immigrated to the United States from the Azores, a cluster of islands situated in the Atlantic about 1,400 km (870 mi) west of Lisbon. His father arrived in the United States in 1880, at age seven. His mother immigrated much later, in 1896, at the age of 17. That same year she married Frank, who in the coming years supported Nestor and the rest of the growing Paiva family working as the proprietor of a grocery store in Fresno and then, by the late 1920s, as a gardener and laborer of "odd jobs".[3][4][5]
Frank and Mariana Paiva moved their entire family to Northern California prior to the summer of 1929, resettling in Alameda County, where Nestor attended the University of California, Berkeley.[5] During his studies there he performed in stage productions both on and off campus. In July 1929, as examples, he was cast in the Berkeley Playhouse's presentations of Robert E. Sherwood's comedy The Queen's Husband and in another comedy, Meet the Wife by Lynn Starling.[6][7] Paiva also gained experience directing plays at the university. In February 1931, he directed a production of Philip Barry's comedy The Youngest after the previous director resigned due to "ill health".[8] Following graduation, Paiva was soon hired to be director of the Eight o'Clock Players troupe at KLX radio in Oakland, California.[9] He also performed later in CBS's early radio version of Gunsmoke, including in that series' first-season episode "Wild West", which originally aired on July 18, 1953.[10]
Film and television
From the 1930s into the 1960s, Paiva was cast in more than 400 feature films and shorts that spanned virtually every genre, including Westerns, comedies, crime and historical drams, adventure stories, horror, and science-fiction films .[2] He also began to work increasingly on television by the 1950s, appearing in such TV series as The Lone Ranger , Zorro, Gunsmoke, Perry Mason, Bonanza, Get Smart, I Spy, Family Affair, The Andy Griffith Show, The Beverly Hillbillies, Daniel Boone, and The Addams Family. Later, as a voice actor on television, he provided the voices for a variety of characters in the 26 episodes of Jonny Quest, an animated adventure series produced by Hanna-Barbera from 1964 to 1965.[11]
Personal life and death
Paiva married Maxine Yvette Kurtzman in Clark, Nevada in January 1941.[1] The couple had two children, Joseph and Caetana, both of whom performed with their father in the 1956 film Comanche starring Dana Andrews. In 1966, Paiva died of cancer at age 61 in Sherman Oaks, California.[2]
