Meet Dan Navarro

Dan Navarro is a published writer and cinephile with an extensive background in classic films. He is a member of the Screen Actors Guild, and has appeared as a background actor (read: "extra") in about 50 movies and TV shows.

Dan's interest in the moving image began at an early age. He was born a little too late to enjoy silent films when they were new, but remembers as a little boy being taken to see the 1942 sound version of Charlie Chaplin's The Gold Rush. He loved the film, and got hooked on silent cinema... even more so, when as an adult he learned that the original 1925 version of that movie was even better than Chaplin's re-release! What other great treasures lay in silent film's vast archives?

In the 1970s, Dan worked as publicity agent for the National Film Society, and in that capacity he got to meet some of the Hollywood greats. He has interviewed Fred Astaire, Jane Russell, Fred MacMurray and his lovely wife June Haver, Jane Withers, Olivia deHavilland, and Diana Canova. His articles were published in the NFS' national magazine, American Classic Screen.

But Dan's greatest passion for films lies in the silent era, that age when audiences were first exposed to pictures that seemed to move—and watched with fascination as they developed into a mature art form.

His latest publication, Navarro's Silent Film Guide, is a masterful, handsomely illustrated, and well-researched book that chronicles silent cinema and lists information on every feature film released in the United States during the silent era. It is illustrated, annotated, and contains more information about silent film than any other book its size.

Dan Navarro and his wife Elaine live in Ventura, California. They have three children and three grandchildren.