Latino to appear as face of U.S. Postal Stamp

Puerto Rican actor José Ferrer will appear on a First-Class Forever Stamp in 2012 as the 14th luminary celebrated in the U.S. Postal Service’s Distinguished Americans series. The portrait featured on the stamp is an oil painting by Daniel Adel of Cold Spring, New York, U.S., based on a photograph of Ferrer.

Considered to be a leader in his generation, Ferrer (1912-1992) won several Tony Awards for his work on stage and performed in more than 60 movies, earning three Academy Award nominations. The most famous film version in English of the acclaimed, Cyrano de Bergerac, is the 1950 film with José Ferrer in the title role, a performance for which he won Best Actor Oscar, becoming the first Hispanic actor to do so.

Born in Santurce, Puerto Rico, Ferrer passed the Princeton University entrance exam at age 15, but was considered too young to attend and spent a year in a boarding school, Le Rosey, in Switzerland. He made his first appearance on Broadway, a one-line part in the play A Slight Case of Murder in 1935. In 1943, he played Iago in Margaret Webster's Broadway production of Othello, which became the longest-running production of a Shakespeare play staged in the U.S., a record it still holds.

It is great to see a Latino face on a U.S. postal stamp, especially given the fact that since the post office issued their first stamp in 1847, over 4,000 stamps have been created and over 800 people featured, not many of which are Hispanic. So cheers to all the prominent Latinos in the U.S. in pursuit of the American Dream. Cheers to those who followed their dreams and made it onto Broadway, Hollywood or the U.S. Postal Service’s Distinguished Americans series. And, cheers to the rest that continue to inspire us to be better everyday, believe that we can fulfill our dreams and encourage others to keep up the spirit.

¡Salud!

Fun fact: His third marriage was to the singer Rosemary Clooney, actor George Clooney's aunt.