The Actors Who Played The Joker

Cesar Romero, the first actor to appear as the Joker, was born in New York City to exporter, Cesar Julio Romero and singer and concert

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pianist, Maria Mantilla, it is believed that Romero's mother Maria is daughter to Cuban poet and Revolutionary leader Jose Marti. While attending Riverdale and the Collegiate School in New York City, Romero did his first acting in the school's The Merchant of Venice. When his father's business crashed, Cesar went to work in one of Wall Street's bank but he still pursued his love of acting. In 1927 Romero teamed up with Elizabeth Higgins to form a dance team and they performed in all the nightclubs and theaters in New York City. In 1929, he decided to do theater acting instead and his first performance was in The Street Singer. While performing in Dinner at Eight, Hollywood moguls saw Romero and offered him a contract. So off to Hollywood he went.

Romero's first appearance on the big screen was in 1933 The Shadow Laughs, but since it was such a flop, most credit his first debut in 1934 in The Thin Man opposite William Powell. During his early days (early 1930's) in Hollywood with Universal, Romero was pretty much typecast in your typical "Latin lover" or gangster roles. He ended up in movies such as The Devil Is A Woman, Love Before Breakfast, Public Enemy's Wife. When Romero moved to Twentieth Century-Fox after contract negotiations failed with Universal, he was given roles in some western shows. This is where he became The Cisco Kid. Romero first played in The Return of The Cisco Kid as henchman Lopez but in 1939 in The Cisco Kid and The Lady, Cesar was the first Latin to ever play the lead role of The Cisco Kid and he went on to do 5 more shows. He also played opposite Shirley Temple in both Wee Willie Winkie (19337) and The Little Princess(1939).

In 1942, Cesar Romero voluntarily enlisted in the U.S. Coast Guard where he stayed for 3 years where he rose to the highest of non-commissioned rank of chief

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boat-swain's mate. In 1947 Cesar played opposite Tyrone Power in Captain from Castile. Power's role was a fictionalized character, Romero played Hernan Cortez, the most famous Conquistador in Spain's conquest of the Americas. Altho the movie was intended to restart Power's career, it mainly put Romero in the forefront of stardom for the next 10 years. In 1950 Romero decided to leave 20th Century Fox to go it alone and moved to television. From 1954 -1955 he played in a short lived series called Passport to Danger and then in 1956 Romero played in the Oscar winner Around The World In 80 Days and for the next few years he did only recurring roles in shows like Studio 57 (1956), The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour (1957), Wagon Train (1958), Zorro (1959), 77 Sunset Strip (1963) and Bonanza (1965). By the time the role of the Joker came around in the 1966 West/Ward version of Batman, Romero had over 100 movie and tv roles under his belt. When he read the script for the part of the Joker, he thought it was hilarious and agreed to do it, the one thing Cesar Romero refused to do was shave his trademark moustache for the part so if you look close at one of his pictures you'll see it beneath the makeup. So from '66 to '68 the actor, Cesar Romero did 20 episodes as the super villian Joker. And what an awesome job he did, for years after doing the Joker, Romero was occasionally stopped by fans and asked to do the sinister laugh he made so popular during his Joker days to which he was always ready to oblige.

For the next 30 years after turning the comic book joker into a real live Joker, Romero did another 62 guest parts on different tv shows such as Get Smart (1968), Here's Lucy (1969), Bewitched (1970) and The Mod Squad (1972). In 1977, Romero played the recurring role of father to the late Freddie Prince in Chico and The Man. Before becoming Peter Stavros from 1985-1988 opposite Jane Wyman in Falcon Crest, he also managed to get parts in Charlie's Angels (1980), Magnum P.I. (1985) and Riptide (1985). After 60 years of acting and almost 200 impressive roles under his belt, Romero passed away on new year's day in '94 from a blood clot.

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Nominated for 12 Academy Awards (one for every decade since 1960) winning 3 of them, winner of 7 Golden Globe Awards, received a Kennedy Center Honor in 2001 and became one of the youngest actors to be awarded the American Film Institute's Life Achievement Award in 1994. Jack Nicholson was the second actor to put his face to the infamous Joker. When Jack graduated from Manasquan High School, where he was class clown in 1954, Nicholson set off for Hollywood. Once there he got a job as go-fer for the animation department of MGM. While doing some theatrical work, Jack got noticed by B-movie mogul Roger Corman after which Nicholson got his debut in the movies in The Cry Baby Killer (1958). Through out 1960 he played a troubled teen in movies such as Too Soon To Love and The Wild Ride and a sado-masochistic dental patient in Little Shop of Horrors. For the next two years Nicholson got bit parts in a few tv series such as Tales of Wells Fargo, Sea Hunt and Hawaiin Eye and in '62 he also married Sandra Knight and in '65 Nicholson's first child was born, Jennifer and divorced in '68. In 1963, back he went under Corman's direction, Nicholas played in The Raven (1963), then with an unknown Francis Ford Coppola in The Terror (1963). Then in '64, Nicholson finally got another shot at trying for the front line of stardom in Ensign Pulver but alas it wasn't meant to be yet.

Back to the b-movies he went this time under Monte Hellman, first appearing in Flight to Fury and Back Door To Hell and then co-producing a couple of b-westerns, Ride in The Whirlwind and The Shooting. With his acting career not taking off, Nicholson decided to give a try at writing/directing instead and in 1967 came up with the screenplay The Trip starring Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper as well as Heads starring The Monkees.

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Then came his big break, Fonda and Hopper were working on a project of their own called Easy Rider (1969). When Rip Torn bailed out, Nicholson took over the role of the alcoholic lawyer which he received his first oscar nomination. His next nomination came the next year in Five Easy Pieces, the same year he played in On A Clear Day You Can See Forever with Barbra Streisand. In 1970 Jack also wrote, produced, directed and starred in Drive, He Said which really didn't go anywhere. But he made up for it in Carnal Knowledge (1971) and in 1973 in The Last Detail which he got best actor at the Cannes Film Festival and again in 1974 with Chinatown (Oscar nominated for Best Actor). Also in '73, Jack would see the start of his 17 year relationship with Angelica Houston, ending after she found out that Rebecca Broussard was carrying his child. 1975 was a busy year for Nicholson starring in The Who's Tommy, The Fortune and One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest for which he received his first Best Actor Oscar.

Over the next 5 years Jack Nicholson did small bits here and there, including his second attempt at directing in Goin' South and altho he turned down a number of top

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notch roles, it never hurt his career. 1980 was the role that made him even more famous in Stephen King's The Shining. Thru out the '80's Nicholson had a number of awesome movies including The Postman Always Rings Twice (1981), Reds (1981, received an Oscar nomination), Terms of Endearment (1983, his next Ocar win), Prizzi's Honor (1985, received an Oscar nomination), The Witches of Eastwick (1987) and Ironweed (1987, received an Oscar nomination). Then in 1989, Jack became the next actor to play The Joker for Batman, the same year that saw the end of his 17 year relationship with Angelica Houston. During the 90's, Nicholson played in 2 sequels to his previous movies, The Two Jakes (1990, sequel to Chinatown) and The Evening Star (1996, sequel to Terms of Endearment), a couple of flops, Man Trouble (1992) and Hoffa (1992) and another Oscar nomination, A Few Good Men and another win As Good As It Gets. As well as a couple of other great movies such as Wolf and The Crossing Guard. After taking a few years off, Nicholson returned to star in one of Sean Penn's movie, The Pledge but it took another year before he was back in the critics good graces with About Schmidt. Then a year later starring with Adam Sandler in Anger Management and with Diane Keaton in Something's Gotta Give. Taking another few years off then appearing in Martin Scoreses', The Departed.

During his lifetime in addition to his first child (Jennifer, 1963) with wife Sandra, Nicholson also has 4 other children. Caleb (1970) with Susan Anspach; Honey Hollman (1981) with Danish supermodel, Winnie Hollman; Lorraine Nicholson (1990) and Raymond (1992) with Rebecca Broussard.

Who would have thought that the most famous animated Joker on quite a few of the animated Batman

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series would be none other than Luke Skywalker from the Star Wars fame! Actor Mark Hamill got his debut in 1970 in The Bill Cosby Show and a few guest spots in shows like The Partridge Family and Cannon. Then he went to the soap opera General Hospital from '72-'73 after which he did a few a voice overs in some '70's cartoons, along with some guest shots in different sitcoms like Room 222, The Texas Wheelers and One Day At A Time. Then in 1977 he starred in the pilot of Eight is Enough as David then wanting to get out of it because he had a feeling that the movie Star Wars would be a hit and he would sooner concentrate on his movie career. So Mark Hamill went on to fame with the Star Wars sequel in 1977, 1980 and 1983.

Hamill has an unusual talent for disguising his voice which has put him in high demand for voice-over work. In 1991, Mark Hamill's voice was the voice who played The Trickster in the cartoon The Flash and then from '92 -'94 Mark Hamill was the voice over actor who played The Joker in the animated Batman series and continued with it in the animated Superman as well. From 1995 - 1998, Mark Hamill also did the voice of Hobgoblin in the animated Spiderman, from 1996 - 1997 Gargoyle in the animated Incredible Hulk then back again to the Joker in The New Adventures of Batman from 1997 - 1999. He still does the Joker in the majority of the animated Batman shows but in 2002 Hamill also did the voice of Solomon Grundy, The Joker and The Trickster in Justice League.
Definitely don't forget to check out more voice over work of this excellent voice over actor.

as well.

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Heathcliff Ledger was born in Perth Australia and that's where he started his acting career. While attending Guildford Grammar School, one of the rules was they had to take cooking class or drama, Ledger opted for drama and starred in a production of Peter Pan. On top of his growing love of acting, Heath also loved to play chess winning Western Australia's junior chess championship and as an adult could quite often be found at Washington Square Park. Brokeback Mountain wasn't Heath Ledger's first gay role, his first real acting job was a gay character on the 1993 series Sweat as a cyclist. His first big role however was in the feature film Blackrock in 1997 about a fictional rape and murder of a teenage girl. After this he was a guest in a few Australian series, Ship To Shore and Home And Away and then as the star in the American series Roar (1997). In 1999, Heath Ledger got noticed for 2 movies, Australian made Two Hands (which earned him a Best Actor nomination from the AFI Film Festival) and American made 10 Things I Hate About You. After which he was offered many other "teen romance" movies, however Ledger fought the stereotype and waited for something new to come along. And it did in the form of The Patriot in 2000 playing Gabriel Martin, the son of Mel Gibson's Benjamin Martin. And then in 2001 he landed the lead role in A Knight's Tale.

Showing how diversified he really is, Ledger starred opposite Billy Bob Thorton in Monster's Ball in 2001 and then opposite Kate Hudson in the 2002 The Four Feathers, unfortunately the later was not as impressive at the box office. 2003 brought a couple more movies for Ledger, The Order and Ned Kelly neither of which brought him fame and fortune. Next came Lords of Dogtown (2005) and then Ledger teamed up with Matt Damon in The Brothers Grimm (2005). Finally Ledger got his day in the sun with his Oscar and Golden Globe nominations in Brokeback Mountain (2005). Next in 2005 came a big disappointment in the movie Casanova. During this time as well, Ledger had broken up with Naomi Watts and started dating his co-star Michelle Williams and then in

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October of the same year his first child was born, a daughter named Matilda. After making the movie Candy in 2006, Ledger was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Then in 2007, he went on to play in I'm Not There, playing Robbie Clark a moody, counter-culture actor who represents the romanticist side of Bob Dylan.

In 2008, Heath Ledger got great news when he was asked to play The Joker in The Dark Knight opposite Christian Bale. Unfortunately on January 22, 2008 Ledger died from an accidental overdose of sleeping pills. Some seem to think that he managed to do a better job at The Joker then Jack Nicholson did, but I have to disagree with that. Jack was and always will be the perfect Joker. Ledger was nominated for and won a Golden Globe and Academy Award win for Outstanding Supporting Actor at the 15th Annual Screen Actors Guild awards for which he won the Academy Award for, as well as a win for Outstanding Supporting Actor at the 15th Annual Screen Actors Guild awards.