Who is Ricardo Montalban?

In1993, actor Ricardo Montalban received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Screen Actors Guild.  Here is part of what he said about the progression of an actor’s career.

“Who is Ricardo Montalban?
Get me Ricardo Montalban,
Get me a Ricardo Montalban type.
Get me a young Ricardo Montalban.
Who is Ricardo Montalban?”

First class actor that Montalban was, he will be remembered in two hundred years only by film academics.  Film greats such as John Barrymore,  Louise Brooks, and Claude Rains are now almost entirely forgotten.  The memory of other celebrities such as Ceelo Green, Kim Kardashian, and even Honey Boo Boo will be even shorter.

Being politically and historically important are no guarantee of being remembered.  How many know the stories of Boudicca, Queen of the Iceni tribe, or of the Trung Sisters?

Important religious leaders, even the founders of religions, fare no better.  How many non-Bahais can name the founder of that religion?   Who was Father Divine, or Anton Sandor LaVey, or Sidney Rigdon, or George Gurdjieff, or Elizabeth Claire Prophet, or Adoniram Judson, or Aleister Crowley, or Aimee Semple McPherson?

Entire cultures have been forgotten.  Until the ruins of their capital city were discovered in Turkey in 1871, no one believed that the Hittite Empire mentioned in the Bible really existed.

Jesus of Nazareth was a simple carpenter from a dusty little backwater town.  If you say His name almost anywhere in the world you may not find any of His followers, but you can be sure that someone will at least have heard His name.