To most audiences, Duncan Renaldo will always be identified as film and TV's "The Cisco Kid." However, this role occurred late in his career, which consisted of much more than just this western character. Not much is known about Renaldo's early life. In fact, his date and place of birth is still questioned. The usual given birth date is April 23, ...
We've taken all our fine western lore and splashed it with criminality and barbarism. The whole idea of these adult films is a fallacy. Nowhere did they ever shoot five or six men before breakfast. That quick-draw business, too, is a fake. Nobody can shoot accurately following a quick draw. Why bring kids up on this stupid craze? Nowadays, you frequently read where some kid has shot off his kneecap or wounded a friend trying to perfect a quick draw. A gun has become a plaything.
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Fact
1
His actual name consists of three surnames - Renault, Renaldo, and Duncan.
2
During the 1953-1954 season of The Cisco Kid (1950), he was severely injured in a rock fall and hospitalized through nine episodes. The producers had Cisco wearing masks, disguised as a ghost and used other gimmicks where they could use doubles. He had to record his lines--and shoot his close-ups--from his hospital bed, and the producers also used previously shot footage of him.
3
As the Cisco Kid he rode on a black & white Overo named Diablo. Sidekick Pancho got along on a palomino named Loco. The horses' names came out of the radio series.
4
Renaldo was arrested for illegal immigration in 1934 (he was a sailor on a ship that docked in Maryland in the late 1920s but caught fire at the pier and burned, stranding him in the US). There was some confusion as to his birthplace--he was orphaned as a child in Europe and didn't know where he was born--and since the authorities didn't know to which country he should be deported, he was imprisoned for a year. He was "rescued" by Republic Pictures president Herbert J. Yates, who signed him to a contract and vouched for him, and he was eventually granted a pardon by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
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