Edward Raquello

Edward Raquello, born Edward Zylberberg Kucharski on 14 May 1900 in Warsaw, Poland, was a Polish-American actor of stage and screen who died on 24 August 1976. He immigrated to the United States in March 1926 and built a career that spanned Broadway, Hollywood, and eventually broadcasting.

Despite his Eastern European origins, Raquello became known in Hollywood for portraying Latin Lover roles. His stage work ran concurrently with his screen career, and his Broadway appearances extended from 1930 to 1945, encompassing both dramas and comedies.

His theatrical credits began accumulating in the early 1930s. In 1931, he appeared in Wonder Bar, a production headlined by Al Jolson. The following year he was part of the cast of New York to Cherbourg at the Forrest Theatre in New York City. In 1933, he joined Rose Hobart and Humphrey Bogart at the Booth Theatre in the comedy Our Wife. During the summer of 1934, he co-starred with Betty Bronson in Genius in Love at the Elverhoj Theatre in Kingston, New York. In January 1935, he took on the role of Al Pomo, Public Enemy Number One, in Nowhere Bound, a melodrama written by Leo Birinski concerning undesirable aliens aboard a deportation train, presented at the Imperial Theatre in New York City.

Raquello appeared in the original Broadway production of Idiot's Delight during 1936 and 1937, a production that starred Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne. He later joined the touring company of There Shall Be No Night in 1941, again in a cast headed by Lunt and Fontanne. His additional Broadway credits include the drama The Wind and the Rain and The Rugged Path.

Following the conclusion of the Second World War, Raquello transitioned away from performing. Through the 1960s, he served as a program director and executive producer at the Voice of America radio for the United States Information Agency.