Renavent

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Georges Renavent [1]made his first American film appearance in 1915's Seven Sisters. Fourteen years later, in 1929, Renavent played an impressive starring as the Kinkajou in RKO's musical spectacular, Rio Rita.

Rio Rita [2] is the name of a very successful 1927 stage musical by Florenz Ziegfeld, which originally united Wheeler and Woolsey as a team and made them famous. In 1929, Radio Pictures (later known as RKO) purchased the rights to film this lavish musical. The film was the biggest and most expensive production for Radio Pictures for 1929 and it proved to be a huge success. The last portion of the film was photographed in Technicolor.

Renavent also starred in East of Borneo,[3]which was one of the most frequently telecast films of the 1950s and 1960s. East of Borneo starred Rose Hobart as Linda, the wife of African missionary Dr. Clark (Charles Bickford). Feeling stifled by her unfamiliar surroundings, Linda is further isolated from civilization when her husband runs off into the jungle, believing that his wife has been unfaithful. With grim determination, our heroine heads into the wilds herself in search of Clark, braving all manner of marauding wildlife and human predators. When she finally catches up with her husband, she finds he's been living in comparative luxury as court physician of the Prince of Marudu (Georges Renavent).

East of Borneo went on to achieve latter-day fame when an avant-garde filmmaker, Joseph Cornell, spliced together all of the leading lady's close-ups, and came up with a surrealistic exercise titled Rose Hobart[4]. When Cornell screened the film, Salvador Dali was in attendance. Dali was incensed that Cornell had created such a masterpiece before he could.

In 1936, Renavent played opposite Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi in Universals, The Invisible Ray. In 1940, he took on a role in Hal Roach's, Turnabout. His final film was made in 1952, when he played Ortega in Mara Maru, with Erroll Flynn.

Renavent also ran his own American Grand Guiginol and was involved in many Broadway plays in New York [5]. He was married to Selena Royle, an actress and daughter of Edwin Milton Royle. Edwin Milton Royle wrote, The Squaw Man [6], which was adapted for film and starred Cecile B. Demille. They left the United States to live in Mexico after Selena was unfairly entangled in the McCarthy era Communism investigations[7]. While in Mexico, both Selena and Georges continued to be active in the arts and put out various cookbooks, including Pheasants for Peasants, A Gringa's Guide to Mexican Cooking and Guadalajara As I Know, Live It, Love It.

He is survived by his daugther, Francette Paretti, his granddaughter, Lynne Paretti Smaldone and her two sons, Matthew Aaron Smaldone and Gregory Andrew Smaldone.