Mario Montez: Movies & Box Office

René Rivera, better known by his stage name Mario Montez, was a pivotal figure in the New York underground film scene of the 1960s and 1970s. Born on July 20, 1935 in Ponce, Puerto Rico, he moved with his family to East Harlem at the age of eight, where he grew up amidst a burgeoning artistic community. Montez taught himself print and graphic arts while holding clerical jobs, a modest background that contrasted sharply with the flamboyant drag persona he would later embody. His entry into cinema was almost accidental: a chance encounter with avant‑garde filmmaker Jack Smith landed him a role in the notorious underground classic Flaming Creatures, and he soon appeared in Smith’s Normal Love and Ron Rice’s Chumlum. Mario Montez’s career skyrocketed when Andy Warhol recruited him as a “superstar,” featuring him in thirteen of Warhol’s experimental films between 1964 and 1966, including iconic pieces such as Mario Banana No. 1, The Chelsea Girls, and Camp. Although Montez never formed a close personal bond with Warhol, his performances—often improvised from watching old movies—became emblematic of the era’s queer aesthetic, earning him the title of the first superstar and “the queen mom of all drag queens.”

Beyond film, Montez co‑founded Charles Ludlam’s Ridiculous Theatrical Company, hosting rehearsals in his SoHo loft and influencing a generation of drag performers and playwrights. In 1977 he withdrew from the artistic world, moving to Orlando and later Florida, where he returned to clerical work and lived out of the public eye until a 2006 documentary rekindled interest in his legacy. Honored by Columbia University’s Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race in 2010 and receiving the Special Teddy Award at the Berlinale in 2012, Montez’s contributions were finally recognized by mainstream institutions. He passed away from a stroke on September 26, 2013 in Key West, Florida, leaving behind a rich archive of underground cinema that continues to inspire contemporary queer and drag artists.