Nestor Paiva

Nestor Paiva (June 30, 1905 – September 9, 1966) was an American stage, radio, film and television actor of Portuguese descent. He performed in over 400 motion pictures either as an extra, a bit player, or as a significant supporting character. He also appears in such roles in a variety of television series produced during the 1950s and early 1960s. Among his notable screen appearances is his recurring role as the innkeeper Teo Gonzales in Walt Disney's late 1950s televised Spanish Western series Zorro, as well as in its adapted theatrical release The Sign of Zorro (1958). Paiva also appears as the boat captain Lucas in the Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954) and in that horror film's sequel Revenge of the Creature (1955). Early years and stage and radio work Born in California in 1905, Nestor was the tenth of twelve children of Mariana Luísa (née Freitas) and Francisco "Frank" Caetano Paiva. Both of his parents were natives of Portugal, who immigrated to the United States from the Azores, a cluster of islands situated in the Atlantic about west of Lisbon. His father arrived in the United States in 1880, at age seven. His mother immigrated much later, in 1896, at the age of 17. That same year she married Frank, who in the coming years supported Nestor and the rest of the growing Paiva family working as the proprietor of a grocery store in Fresno and then, by the late 1920s, as a gardener and laborer of "odd jobs". Frank and Mariana Paiva moved their entire family to Northern California prior to the summer of 1929, resettling in Alameda County, where Nestor attended the University of California, Berkeley. During his studies there he performed in stage productions both on and off campus. In July 1929, as examples, he was cast in the Berkeley Playhouse's presentations of Robert E. Sherwood's comedy The Queen's Husband and in another comedy, Meet the Wife by Lynn Starling. Paiva also gained experience directing plays at the university. In February 1931, he directed a production of Philip Barry's comedy The Youngest after the previous director resigned due to "ill health". Following graduation, Paiva was soon hired to be director of the Eight o'Clock Players troupe at KLX radio in Oakland, California.