Influences: Teacher Araxi Jamgochian



Fellow students and
Ricardo Montalbán 

Ricardo Montalbán's epiphany about acting occurred on a high school stage.  At the urging of his brother Carlos, Ricardo Montalbán traveled to the United States after finishing his studies in Mexico to enroll at Fairfax High School in Los Angeles, then a newer school that had opened about a decade before in 1924.  The idea was for Ricardo to learn English and better his life chances in business, or perhaps to begin his hopes of becoming an architect or engineer. 

At Fairfax, Ricardo studied public speaking.  He revealed in an August 2002 interview with the Archive of American Television, "I took public speaking in order to learn the language better because that is the most important subject in school, for any student, because it is through English that we are going to learn mathematics and philosophy."  His enthusiasm for learning brought him to the attention of teacher Araxi Jamgochian. 

Araxi Jamgochian was also the drama coach at Fairfax High School, and she noticed something about her student Ricardo's speaking abilities that she thought could be honed.  She asked Ricardo to appear in the school play, The Whole Town's Watching.  Commenting in his 1980 autobiography Reflections: A Life in Two, Ricardo Montalbán details that "I had a small role, but the experience of being onstage nevertheless overwhelmed me.  I was still shy, especially in a land where I was unsure of the language." 

Ricardo Montalbán and
fellow student Peggy Tyer

Her belief in Ricardo Montalbán's talents maintained, Araxi Jamgochian then asked him to play the main role in the senior production of Tovarich as Prince Mikail Alexandrovitch Ouratieff.  During the Archive of American Television interview, he recalls that it was this role that inspired him to forget architecture and become an actor, "This is what I want to do for the rest of my life...It was like someone hit me with a big bug." 

Helping his confidence was that a talent scout from MGM was in the audience at Fairfax High School who offered him a test at the studio.  Carlos, himself an actor and businessman, urged his brother to wait until finishing school and attending some college.  He told Ricardo that if he had talent, then MGM would test him again after school.

Ricardo Montalbán's love of entertaining did not diminish, and he credits his teacher, Araxi Jamgochian, with providing his first introduction into the possibilities of acting.  Sociologist Erving Goffman believed that people tend to behave as actors during social interactions, and for those with stigmas, such as not being comfortable with language, it is understandable why Ricardo Montalbán would find solace in portraying someone else and receiving accolades for his performances.  Ricardo Montalbán wrote of his first acting experiences that, "It was a fascinating experience, like being a guest at a masked ball and losing your own personality behind the artifice of a mask." 



Graduation

 Teachers such as Araxi Jamgochian may not realize what influences they have on their students at the moment, but it is her inspiring of Ricardo Montalbán that allowed him to eventually inspire millions of others and to live his remarkable life as an actor and activist. 

Fairfax High School as it was when
Ricardo Montalbán attended

Trivia note: Other graduates of Fairfax High School include personalities as diverse as Mickey Rooney, Carol Lombard, Herb Alpert, Mila Kunis, Lenny Kravitz, and Jack Kemp.