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Héctor Elizondo

American actor

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
People and ideasInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 2, 2026
Entity authorityQ313433 ↗
Source-derived summary

Héctor Elizondo (born December 22, 1936) is an American character actor. He is known for playing Phillip Watters in the television series Chicago Hope (1994–2000) and Ed Alzate in the television series Last Man Standing (2011–2021). His film roles include Pocket Money (1972), The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974), Cuba (1979), American Gigolo (1980), The Flamingo Kid (1984), Taking Care of Business (1990), Pretty Woman (1990), Beverly Hills Cop III (1994), The Princess Diaries (2001), and Love in the Time of Cholera (2007).

Elizondo has received an Obie Award, a Primetime Emmy Award, and two ALMA Awards, and had been nominated for a Drama Desk Award, a Golden Globe Award, a Satellite Award, and five Screen Actors Guild Awards.

Early life

Hector Elizondo was born on December 22, 1936, in New York, the son of Carmen Medina Reyes and Martín Echevarría Elizondo, an accountant and notary public. His parents were Puerto Ricans of Spanish descent who moved from Puerto Rico to New York City with the hope of finding a better life. He grew up near 107th street on Manhattan's Upper West Side.

At a young age, he demonstrated a talent for sports and music. He sang for the Frank Murray Boys' Choir when he was 10 years old. Upon graduating from junior high school in 1950, he enrolled in the High School of the Performing Arts.

Editorial summary

“Héctor Elizondo” enters the record as american actor. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Héctor, Elizondo and American can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA productive starting point for separating a subject’s documented career from later reputation and commemoration. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1936, 1994, 2000, 2011—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1936-12-22. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Héctor, Elizondo and American.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Héctor Elizondo” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Héctor, Elizondo and American provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 2, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q313433. VIAF identifies the subject as 85643944. The Library of Congress control number is n84156274. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1936, 1994, 2000 and 2011.

Critical limits

Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Héctor Elizondo”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Héctor Elizondo primary sources, Héctor Elizondo archive and Héctor research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Héctor Elizondo”?
  2. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
  3. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Héctor Elizondo” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.