Strong, silent type: rediscovering the life of Ramon Novarro, star of silent films and of gay Hollywood.

Beyond Paradise: The Life of Ramon Novarro * Andre Soares * St. Martin's Press * $27.95

One of the Latin-American movie stars, Ramon Novarro is best known for his lead in the 1925 silent classic Ben-Hur, for his role opposite Greta Garbo in Mata Hari six years later, and for his murder by male hustlers in 1968. After five years as an extra in crowd scenes, Novarro got his break in Rex Ingram's 1922 Metro Pictures production of The Prisoner of Zenda. This began his early crucial partnership with Ingram, who had directed Rudolph Valentino in The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Less temperamental than Valentino and far less compelling onscreen, Novarro was nevertheless billed as his successor in the new "Latin lover" type. He rose to fame while his rival was simmering on the sidelines and engaged in a lengthy contractual dispute with his studio.

Novarro's naturalistic acting style and strong voice helped ease his transition to sound films. But his talents couldn't make up for his haphazard choice of roles or his curious lack of chemistry with his female costars. Although he would appear in character roles for years to come, Novarro was released from his MGM contract in 1935. By then the star's looks had begun to fade, and he was pursuing his second career--drunk driving.

Screenwriter Andre Soares's well-researched, well-meaning biography is rich in detail but barely registers a pulse. The few quotes fr9m the mild-mannered actor himself provide the liveliest prose in the book. On the failure of a projected film of Romeo and Juliet, for example, Novarro told an interviewer: "The [MGM] Eastern office had to be consulted, and they consulted their salesmen, who consulted the exhibitors, who consulted I don't know who.... Anyway, Romeo and Juliet is not being produced. You begin to feel, after a few adventures in this maze, that you are up against a monster without a head."

What Soares does best is flatten rumors as well as the stories surrounding Novarro's death--suffocation by a black art deco dildo or, alternately, by a dildo molded from Valentino's member. Given Novarro's otherwise quiet life, the reader is a little sad to let these rumors go.

Marler writes for The New York Observer and the Los Angeles Times Book Review.