He was the first Puerto Rican-born actor and first Hispanic actor to win an Academy Award, for playing the titular role in the 1950 film version of Cyrano de Bergerac. He also won the very first Best Actor Tony Award for playing the same role on Broadway, which gives him the distinction of being the only actor to ever win an Oscar, Tony, Emmy, and Golden Globe for playing the same character. (He won Tonys for acting and directing in the original 1952 production of The Shrike.)
He was the father of actor Miguel Ferrer, and uncle to George Clooney through his wife, singer Rosemary Clooney.
No relation to Mel Ferrer, who was of Cuban descent.
Partial filmography:
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Actor
- Joan of Arc (1948) as Charles VII
- Whirlpool (1950) as David Korvo
- Cyrano de Bergerac (1950) as Cyrano de Bergerac
- Moulin Rouge (1952) as Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
- The Caine Mutiny (1954) as Lt. Barney Greenwald
- Lawrence of Arabia (1962) as the Turkish Bey
- Ship of Fools (1965) as Siegfried Rieber
- The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965) as Herod Antipas
- The Little Drummer Boy (1968) as Ben Haramad
- Columbo episode "Mind Over Mayhem" (1974) as Dr. Marshall Cahill
- The Big Bus (1976) as Ironman
- The Sentinel (1977) as the Priest of the Brotherhood
- Zoltan, Hound of Dracula (1977) as Inspector Branco
- The Swarm (1978) (1978) as Dr. Andrews
- Bloody Birthday (1981) as the Doctor
- A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy (1982) as Professor Leopold Sturges
- To Be or Not to Be (1983) as Professor Siletski
- Dune (1984) as the Padishah Emperor Shaddam IV
- Murder, She Wrote episode "Death Casts a Spell" as Cagliostro
Director
- The Shrike (1955)
- State Fair (1962)
Tropes associated with José Ferrer:
- Cunning Linguist: Spoke Spanish, English, French, and Italian fluently.
- Fake Nationality: His most famous roles were as Fake Frenchmen (Cyrano in Cyrano de Bergerac & Toulouse-Lautrec in Moulin Rouge) and a Fake Turk (the Bey in Lawrence of Arabia). He also played an Austrian Nazi in Ship of Fools, a Romanian police inspector in Zoltan, Hound of Dracula, and a Jewish-American lawyer in The Caine Mutiny.
- Money, Dear Boy: Ferrer appeared in several trashy B Movies like Dracula's Dog later in his career because a series of bad investments nearly bankrupted him.
- Plays Great Ethnics: His swarthy complexion and sharp features saw him cast variously as Turks, Arabs, Greeks, and Jews.
- What Could Have Been: He was Billy Wilder's first choice to play Don Birnam in The Lost Weekend, but the studio rejected him for not being a "bankable lead."
