"Montalban was no stranger to prejudice. He was born Nov. 25, 1920, in Mexico City, the son of parents who had emigrated from Spain. The boy was brought up to speak the Castilian Spanish of his forebears. To Mexican ears that sounded strange and effeminate, and young Ricardo was jeered by his schoolmates.

His mother also dressed him with old-country formality, and he wore lace collars and short pants 'long after my legs had grown long and hairy,' he wrote in his 1980 autobiography, 'Reflections: A Life in Two Worlds.'

'It is not easy to grow up in a country that has different customs from your own family's.'"