Nico Minardos

Nico Minardos (born February 15, 1930 in Pangrati, Athens, Greece), is an Greek-American actor.

Life and works

Nico Minardos made his first appearance in front of the Hollywood cameras as an extra in the 1952 film Monkey Business, starring Cary Grant, Ginger Rogers, and Marilyn Monroe. Also listed among his film credits are Twelve Hours to Kill, in which he starred opposite Barbara Eden; It Happened in Athens, starring blonde bombshell Jayne Mansfield; and Cannon for Cordoba, an action-packed western with George Peppard and Pete Duel.

The majority of Minardos' work, however, was in television, where he made guest appearances in a wide variety of shows. Because of his dark looks and accent, he was often cast as a Mexican, a trend which can be seen throughout his career. These roles included that of a thief in the Maverick episode, "The Judas Mask"; a doctor in The Twilight Zone episode "The Gift"; and two roles in the TV show Alias Smith and Jones, first as a bandit chief in "Journey from San Juan," and then as the Alcalde of a Mexican resort town in "Miracle at Santa Marta." These latter two appearances reunited him with Cannon for Cordoba co-star, Pete Duel, who played Hannibal Heyes, the alias Smith of title.

Minardos has been married twice, first briefly in the mid-1950s to the former Deborah Jean Smith (sometimes incorrectly referred to as Deborah Ann Montgomery). There were no children from that marriage. Two years after the...
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