Sergio Calderón, the amiable Mexican character actor who made his mark in such notable films as The In-Laws, Men in Black, and Pirates of the Caribbean 3: At World’s End, has died. He was 77.
Calderón died Wednesday in a Los Angeles hospital of natural causes, a family spokesman announced.
Calderón portrayed a Mexican revolutionary at the turn of the 20th century in Duck, You Sucker! (1971), written and directed by Sergio Leone, and was a murderous Mexican chief of police opposite Albert Finney in John Huston’s Under the Volcano (1984).
He guest-starred as the colorful bandit Malavida Valdése on the premiere episode of NBC’s The A-Team in 1983, then returned as the river pirate El Cajón (The Coffin) at the start of the show’s third season a year later.
Calderón played Alfonso, one of the Hondurans, in the Arthur Hiller comedy The In-Laws (1979) — it was the role that got him his SAG card — and fans of the original Men in Black (1997) know him as the “head on a stick” held by an extraterrestrial “illegal alien” attempting to sneak across the U.S.-Mexico border in the Barry Sonnenfeld film.
Later, Calderón was the Spanish pirate lord Capt. Vallenueva in Pirates of the Caribbean 3: At World’s End (2007).
Born on July 21, 1945, Calderón moved from his home in a tropical village to Mexico City when he was 10 and studied at the Instituto Andrés Soler of the Asociación Nacional de Actores. He then made his onscreen debut in The Bridge in the Jungle (1970), starring Huston.
Among the three dozen or so films on his résumé were The Revengers (1972), The Children of Sánchez (1978), Le Chèvre (1981), Old Gringo (1989), The Missing (2003), The Ruins (2008) and Little Fockers (2010). He also showed up on the final season of the FX series Better Things last year.
In other news – Armie Hammer acquitted of s.e.x.ual assault charges
The actor Armie Hammer will not face criminal charges after a police investigation into a sexual assault allegation against him, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office said on Wednesday.
In 2021, a woman accused Mr. Hammer of raping her in April 2017, prompting the Los Angeles Police Department to open an investigation into the actor, whose Hollywood career has been derailed by the allegation and accusations from other women that he had physically abused them. Mr. Hammer has maintained that all of his interactions with women have been completely consensual.Learn More
