Don Alvarado

Biography

Jose Paige was given the screen name Don Alvarado by studio chief Jack L. Warner while they purportedly were driving past the Los Angeles street Alvarado. Paige played a number of starring roles that relied on his Latin good looks, and masculine build, achieving a certain following as a Rudolph Valentino type. He was barely 17 when he left his native Albuquerque and came to Los Angeles where he became fast friends with fellow struggling actor Gilbert Roland. Paige met his future wife Ann Boyar while both were still teenagers and the young couple married and soon after had a daughter named Joy. After six years of marriage Ann Page fell in love with Jack Warner and the marriage to Paige dissolved. Warner waited several more years until his parents died before he divorced his wife, Irma, and married Ann. When asked why she had divorced Paige to marry Warner, Ann Warner joked, "the talkies, of course." In 1928 Warner's studio had ushered in the sound era, and Paige's career like those of so many other silent actors, had suffered. He continued to act, but in supporting roles. He and Ann remained friends, though, and after a long career as an assistant director, Paige was asked by his former wife if he might like to manage the 80,000 acre Arizona cattle ranch she had purchased with Warner. Page had grown up in cattle country, was an experienced horseman and spoke Spanish. He accepted the job and by all accounts was a respected and much-liked manager.