<Tr> <Th> Years active </Th> <Td> 1917--1968 </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Th> Awards </Th> <Td> Hollywood Walk of Fame - Motion Picture 6350 Hollywood Boulevard </Td> </Tr> <P> Jose Ramón Gil Samaniego, best known as Ramón Novarro (February 6, 1899--October 30, 1968), was a Mexican film, stage and television actor who began his career in silent films in 1917 and eventually became a leading man and one of the top box office attractions of the 1920s and early 1930s . Novarro was promoted by MGM as a "Latin lover" and became known as a sex symbol after the death of Rudolph Valentino . </P> <P> Novarro was born José Ramón Gil Samaniego on February 6, 1899 in Durango City, Durango, Mexico, to Dr. Mariano N. Samaniego, and his wife, Leonor (Gavilan). The family moved to Los Angeles, California, to escape the Mexican Revolution in 1913 . Novarro's direct ancestors came from the Castilian town of Burgos from where two brothers emigrated to the New World in the seventeenth century . </P>

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