Pepe Hern

Born in New Jersey in 1927 to Spanish immigrants, Pepe Hern was an American actor who specialized in Spanish and Latino parts, mainly Mexican characters, over a career that lasted almost forty years. He made his screen debut at 21 in Bodyguard (1948), and William A. Seiter gave him the two most important parts of his 1950s work, in Borderline (1950) and Make Haste to Live (1954). He appeared in nearly 50 films, among them Madigan (1968), and was a peasant in The Magnificent Seven (1960) and a priest in Joe Kidd (1972), one of his final film appearances. Television provided his steadiest work, with episodes of many series from the 1960s into the 1980s. In the 1960s he also substituted as a teacher in the Los Angeles school district. He died in 2009.