Nestor Paiva, (June 30,1905 - September 9, 1966) was actor a prolific American actor of Portuguese descent who portrayed the innkeeper on Walt Disney's live-action television series Zorro by American Broadcasting Company in its second season.
He was born in Fresno, California.
Nestor appeared in motion pictures and television shows from the 1930s to the 1960s such as Get Smart, The Beverly Hillbillies, and The Addams Family. He played the part of 'Lucas' (the boat captain) in the 1954 horror film The Creature from the Black Lagoon.
His appearances were in over 250 movies.
Paiva married a Peruvian woman and had two children, Joseph and Caetana, who appeared with him in the 1956 movie Comanche with Dana Andrews. The son, Joseph, wound up becoming a noted singer in Peru.
His cause of death was cancer in Hollywood, California.
Veteran character actor Nestor Paiva had one of those indescript 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. In hundreds of film (from 1938) and TV roles, 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 most of them undeservingly small. He died in 1966.
