Veteran character actor Nestor Paiva had one of those nondescript ethnic mugs and a natural gift for dialects that allowed him to play practically any type of foreigner. Born in Fresno, California, he graduated from the University of California at Berkeley and developed an interest in performing while hooking up with college theatrics. Making his debut in a production of "Antigone," he played in a Los Angeles production of "The Drunkard" for 11 years, finally leaving the show as his workload grew in number and importance in the mid-40s. Film buffs remember him as the main villain, "The Scorpion" in the wartime classic serial "Don Winslow of the Coast Guard" (1943). In hundreds of film and TV roles from 1938-67 and in an overall career that spanned 40 years, the bald, dark and bulky Paiva played everything from Spaniards, Greeks, Russians and Portuguese to Italians, Indians, Arabs and even African-Americans (the latter on radio). Some were shifty, others excitable, many quite hilarious...and many of them undeserving and small. He died in 1966.
