10/30/1968 - Seeking a hidden fortune that doesn't exist, in north Hollywood, California, two street hustling hoodlum brothers torture and then murder 69-year-old actor Jose Ramon Gil Samaniego in the man's own home. Headlines the next day, Samaniego is an aging silent film star better known to the world of entertainment as MGM's "Latin Lover," Ramon Navarro, the star of the studio's first telling of Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ.
Born on February 6, 1899 in Durango City, Mexico, Navarro grows up in a prominent north-western Mexican family, the ninth of what will be thirteen siblings (the family's estate is known as "The Garden of Eden"). On his father's side of the family there is a grandfather who becomes a well known physician in the city of Juarez (the family can trace its ancestry back to the Castilian town of Burgos in Spain where two brothers in the seventeenth century relocate west, seeking their fortunes in the New World), along with also being an interim governor of the State of Chihuahua and the first city councilman of El Paso, Texas, and Ramon's father is a doctor with a degree in dentistry from the University of Pennsylvania. Ramon's mother is Leonor Perez-Gavilan, the beautiful daughter of a wealthy landowner in the region ... a mixture of Old and New Worlds, Aztec and Spanish blood that according to local legends can be traced back to Guerrero, a prince of Aztec Emperor Montezuma. Xocoyotzin. The family's idyllic existence in Mexico comes to a screeching halt in 1913 when the Samaniegos are forced to flee north into the United States to escape the violence of the Mexican Revolution.
With Younger Brother Eduardo
Putting down roots in Los Angeles, California, when Ramon's father becomes ill in 1917, the handsome 5'6" Navarro (made to appear six feet tall with lifts and how the cameras are placed when he is filmed), while still a teenager, becomes the head of the family, and as such, he works as a ballet dancer, grocery store clerk, piano teacher, theater usher, busboy at the Alexandria Hotel, singing waiter, and as a film extra at various studios in Hollywood to support the Samaniegos. For five years he serves his apprenticeship in the young medium of cinema by taking odd jobs, appearing in crowd shots, and finally getting bit roles that get bigger and bigger (among his appearances, he will play a starving peasant, a bandit, a wounded soldier, an Aztec, a dancer, a dancing shepard, a guest at a ball). Looking for a new "Latin Lover" to challenge the huge success Rudolph Valentino has become, in 1922, Ramon's friends, Irish director, producer, and writer Rex Ingram (real name, Reginald Ingram Montgomery Hitchcock), and his wife, actress and director, Alice Terry (real name, Alice Frances Taaffe), the couple that has made Valentino a star with his turn opposite Terry in Ingram's anti-war film, "The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse," cast Ramon as the suave treasonous swashbuckler, Rupert of Hentzau, in the third screen version of "The Prisoner of Zenda" (the role of Hentzau will be played next by Douglas Fairbank, Jr. in 1937, and by James Mason in 1952). A big hit, one of the first films to take in more than $1,000,000 in ticket sales, the film's release immediately makes a star of Ramon as his new fans call for more ... and more is what they get (Ingram also convinces the actor to change his last name to Navarro).
As Hentzau
Hollywood Handsome
Suddenly a star in demand for parties, public appearances, and the best roles in Hollywood, Navarro graces movie theaters opposite leading ladies like Alice Terry, Barbara La Marr, Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford, Helen Chandler, Greta Garbo, Helen Hayes, Myrna Loy, Jeanette McDonald, and Lupe Velez, his salary climbs to $10,000 a week (or a $100,000 per picture), he receives over 10,000 fan letters a week, he has a 17-room, four level art-deco mansion built in Los Feliz by Frank Lloyd Wright's son, Lloyd (the inside of the house is accented in black and silver and Ramon often throws parties where guests are required to wear clothes in those colors), so his parents, brothers, and sisters will have a place to live (the home will be owned by Diane Keaton in the 1990s). It also begins to be rumored that the star sleeps in a silk lined silver casket each night. In 1925, Navarro receives one of the great roles in silent cinema when he is cast as the Jewish prince, Judah Ben-Hur (after Rudolph Valentino rejects the part and actor George Walsh is fired from the production). One of film's first blockbusters (at a time when MGM productions cost roughly $158,000 a feature, Ben-Hur costs the studio $3.9 million dollars, but will become the studio's highest-grossing film until 1939's Gone With the Wind), the success of the movie insures Navarro place in feature films for the next ten years ... a period in which he successfully makes the transition from silent movies to talkies.
Movie Poster
Messala (Francis X. Bushman) Vs. Ben-Hur
With Garbo In Mata Hari
Home
Navarro's Pool
Aging and unhappy with the star's excessive drinking, in 1935 MGM does not renew Navarro's contract (another factor is Ramon's refusal of studio head Louis B. Mayer's request that the actor participate in a sham marriage that will mask the star's homosexuality) and Ramon transitions from star into character actor, finding assorted roles in low budget Hollywood productions (his last film is Heller in Pink Tights, director by George Cukor and starring Sophia Loren and Anthony Quinn comes out in 1960) and leading television shows that include The Wonderful World of Walt Disney, Boris Karloff's Thriller, Dr. Kildare, Combat, Bonanza, The Wild Wild West, and The High Chaparral. Unlike many Hollywood actors and actresses though, Navarro does not need the roles to stay comfortably solvent and his real estate investments make him worth slightly over $1,000,000 (mansion sold, his residence is now a one-story, nine room Spanish ranch house in Laurel Canyon), but he does not lead a happy retirement. A devout Catholic, the guilt he feels over his homosexuality causes the actor to become a recluse that drinks and drinks until his cognitive dissonance is temporarily ended when Navarro passes out (the intoxicated victim of a host of DUI arrests, he gets two within two days of each other in 1960, Navarro will eventually lose his driving license) ... and when he isn't pursuing passing out (there are also attempts to write his autobiography), the aging actor finds brief solace in sexual liaisons with young street hustlers he procures through local male escort services. A tragedy just waiting to happen, in October of 1968, the 69-year-old unfortunately crosses paths with two young grifters from the midwest, the Ferguson brothers, Paul Robert (22) and Thomas Scott (17).
Navarro
The Fergusons - Tommy (L) & Paul
The two brothers are the spawn of a daredevil bum named Lucky, who travels about seeking work repairing and painting bridges, towers, roofs, and steeples (anything high, but only when he's not drunk), and his wife, Lorraine ... a failed Catholic relationship which will produce 10 children. The oldest of the horde, Paul, is born in 1946 (he will describe his dad as a "hillbilly piece of shit" more interested in drinking and sex with women that aren't his wife, rather than working and paying the rent). Dining on wild onions, after being popped in the mouth by his father, Paul runs away from home in Florida and hitchhikes to his grandmother's residence in Chicago. Lucky dead when Paul is 12, by 14, the oldest sibling in the family leaves home for good and in the years that follow, there will be three marriages (#1 when he is 16 and marries 42-year-old, that marriage annulled nine months later, pairing #2 takes place when Paul is 19 and ends in divorce), a sojourn in Mexico, work as a cowboy in Wyoming, a stint in the U.S. Army (at 15 after he lies about his age ... discovered, he will be asked to leave with an honorable discharge after a year in the service), and a fist fight with the groom at the nuptials of his mother when Lorraine remarries. Relocating to Los Angeles, Paul works as a local contractor painting houses, and when that doesn't pay all his bills, gains additional income as a male model, prostitute, and pimp, and in 1968, he marries for a third time, taking Mari Ortega, the sister of street hustler named Larry Ortega he has become friends with as his bride.
Tommy & Paul
Tommy Ferguson though still a teenager grows to be a youth 6'$" in stature that also becomes permanently warped without proper parenting and is in and out of mental health clinics and juvenile detention centers at an early age. Like his brother he drops out of school and runs away from home at the age of 15. In the autumn of 1968, the youth runs away from an Illinois reform school and flees to his grandmother's Chicago home. Not a great bonding, she puts him on a flight to Los Angeles and tells him to go live with his older brother ... a hazardous prospect as the last time he was in his brother's company he stole Paul's girlfriend's jewelry, pawned it, then hit the road. In California he walks into a bad situation in which Paul fights with his wife of only three months about losing his contractors job and Mari wants Tommy out of the apartment as quick as possible. Weary of the constant fighting, Mari leaves (sparked by an argument over a can of evaporated milk, she moves in with her parents), and the two penniless brothers are left alone to contemplate how to acquire funding and Paul suggests maybe they can get the cash they need to survive day-to-day by visiting the abode of an aging homosexual who likes young men he has heard about from Larry Ortega (along with stories of a hidden treasure of $5,000). Phone number acquired from Larry, Paul calls the number and he and his brother are invited to spend an evening partying at the Laurel Canyon home of Ramon Navarro, planning on charging the actor $20 to $40 for sex being included in the encounter.
On a warm late Wednesday afternoon, the brothers bum a ride to Laurel Canyon and are greeted at the door by a freshly bathed, shaved (with his mustache and goatee neatly trimmed), and cologne scented Navarro wearing a red and blue silk robe. At first things go well ... vodka, beer, and tequila are served, there are chicken gizzards to munch on, and cigarettes are ordered to be delivered from a local liquor store. Trying to make the youths feel at home, Navarro reads Paul's palm and incorrectly states that he has a bright future (he also claims Paul is handsome enough to be the next Burt Lancaster or Clint Eastwood, and calls a press agent friend to set up a meeting), allows Paul to play "Chopsticks" and "Swanee River" on the piano, plays a snippet of an original song he has recently written, and shows the brothers his collection of pictures and memorabilia from his days as a silent film star. All three drunk (Navarro's blood alcohol level will be found to be .23 against the current California legal limit of .08), an unknown amount of sex takes place before the evening turns violently horrific.
Next Morning
Wednesday his day off, at 8:30 on Halloween morning, Navarro's forty-two year old secretary of eight years, Edward Webber (he is helping the actor write his life story and takes care of paying the bills, many of which tally $20 or $40 for "gardening" services from a nearby male escort service called Masseurs - The Best) arrives at the Laurel Canyon home, enters with his own keys through the kitchen as he usually does, and immediately discovers a rampaged home he begins searching. Police soon called, the crime scene home contains overturned furniture in the living room and den, a pair of spectacles smashed into the living room carpet, empty liquor bottles are strewn about, there a cigarette butts everywhere and cigarette burns on much of the furniture, pictures of a young Ramon and other movie stars of the silent era are all over the floors, "US GIRLS ARE BETTER THAN FAGITS" is written on a bedroom mirror with a brown makeup pencil, "LARRY" (a crude attempt by Paul to have his brother-in-law, Larry Ortega take the fall for the crime) written in ink on a blue bedsheet in Navarro's room, and there are bloodstains in three different rooms (and next door, forty yards away from the house, on the other side of an 8-foot high iron fence that divides Navarro's home from his neighbor's property, a newspaper photographer discovers abandoned bloody clothing, a denim jacket, and undershirt, a T-shirt, and two pairs of underwear). The worst discovery though is the bound and beaten nude corpse on the bed of the master bathroom (there is blood on the body, the bed, on the ceiling, and on the floor, and a tooth is on the floor at the foot of the bed) ... Ramon Navarro. Laying face up on his bed, Navarro has his hands tied behind his back with brown electric cord which the killers then extend down to also bind the actor's ankles. In the actor's right hand a white condom is found. Also found is the murder weapon, a broken silver headed cane (just in case he encountered a werewolf?) Navarro had used as a walking stick in two pieces. Fists and cane, the beating the sends the decedent to the morgue fractures Navarro's nose and there are huge livid bruises on his chest, neck, left arm, both knees, and his penis. Additionally his once handsome face has been transformed into a bloody mess that includes his broken nose and multiple traumatic injuries to the actor's face, neck, and mouth (including scratches to his face and neck left behind as a fake clue to make police think a women is responsible for what has happened), he dies slowly of suffocation, choking on his own blood (the myth that he chokes to death on a lead dildo in the shape of Rudolph Valentino's penis, as told in the book, Hollywood Babylon is a lie made up by a local newspaperman to sell papers).
Webber
Death Certificate
The silent film star's name still holding some sway with the powerbrokers of Los Angeles, the police department assigns three teams of homicide detectives to the high profile case, but the overkill help is unnecessary in quickly solving the case. Covering standard murder investigation routines, the police learn that a phone call from the house on the night of the murder to Chicago has lasted over forty minutes, and when they call the number they learn it belongs to 19-year-old Brenda Lee Metcalf, the girlfriend for the last six months of street hustler Tommy Ferguson, who admits to Tommy being in Navarro's house and that she could hear the former star screaming in the background of the call. Fingerprints sent to Los Angeles, the police make several print matches from the crime scene to Tommy, and with him identified, are soon on to Paul as well. Suspects uncovered, after a failed stakeout of Paul's Gardena apartment doesn't net the brothers, the killers are found and arrested in Bell Gardens (attempting to gain sympathy, Paul will make a feeble attempt to gouge out his eyes that he blames on a group of black cons, but the authorities aren't buying). Bailed denied Paul pending trial, and Tommy ruled an adult by a juvenile court, with prosecution by Deputy District Attorney James Ideman, the brothers, each with their own lawyer, go on trial in the courtroom of Judge Mark Brandler, before a jury of seven men and five women, on August 5, 1969.
Murder Investigation
Big News
Paul & Tommy
In prison at California's infamous San Quentin institute, Paul studies welding and sheet metal work, appears on the prison's radio station, receives an associate's degree from the College of Marin and becomes a writer ... in 1975 he wins a P.E.N. award for a short story called "Dream No Dreams." He also picks up an admirer, a married woman who divorces her husband so she can later marry Paul. Sentenced to life in prison, he is out after serving only nine years of cell time. Freed, Paul marries his admirer, moves to Doniphan, Missouri (near the state's border with Arkansas), fathers a son, and becomes a successful entrepreneur with investments in a rodeo, restaurant, racetrack, and a nightclub. But there is no escaping his temper or sexual needs, and by 2012 he is back in prison (the maximum-security Jefferson City Correctional Center) for rape and sodomy (drunk, he crashes his car, goes looking for help, and when he finds a good samaritan alone in her home, forces himself on the woman), now sentenced to sixty years behind bars which he spends as a practicing Buddhist, doing yoga daily, and painting. Meanwhile, Tommy is constantly in trouble at San Quentin for rules violations and escape attempts. Numbing himself to his environment, he uses marijuana, cocaine, and glue to exit the reality of prison as much as he can. Paroled after serving only six years of his life sentence, Tommy marries his former prison psychiatrist (a women several decades older than he is), divorces, marries again, has a daughter, and then divorces his second wife too. In 1987, he crosses back over to criminality and rapes a 54-year-old woman in Chico, California ... a crime for which he is sentenced to eight more years in prison. Freed once more, he is paroled in 1990 (after serving only four years of his sentence) and celebrates by turning 1991 into a daily dance of public offenses that include multiple charges of public intoxication, failures to appear in court, petty theft, and failure to register as a sex offender when he moves to Palm Springs, California. Finally tired of everything, on March, 6, 2005, he checks into a Motel 6 and without leaving a note behind, commits suicide ... by cutting his own throat.
San Quentin
As for Navarro, still remembered as a kind and gentle man by co-workers, neighbors and fans of the glamorous stars of the silent screen, he is prepared for his final rest at the Cunningham and O'Conner Mortuary at 850 West Washington Blvd. before buried on November 3, 1968 at the Calvary Cemetery in East Los Angeles. He is interred in Section C of the cemetery, Lot 586, Grave 5 below a tombstone that reads simply, "Beloved Brother."
Funeral
Tombstone
10/30/1968 ... on the eve of Halloween, Mexican-American former silent film star Ramon Navarro is murdered by two street thugs for a non-existent treasure of $5,000 (he is remembered in two biographies, "Ramon Navarro" by Allan R. Ellenberger and "Beyond Paradise: The Life of Ramon Navarro" by Andre Soares).
Navarro As Ben-Hur
