Renaldo was arrested for illegal immigration in 1934 (he was a sailor
on a ship that docked in Maryland in the late 1920s but caught fire at
the pier and burned, stranding him in the US). There was some confusion
as to his birthplace--he was orphaned as a child in Europe and didn't
know where he was born--and since the authorities didn't know to which
country he should be deported, he was imprisoned for a year. He was
"rescued" by Republic Pictures president
Herbert J. Yates, who signed him to a
contract and vouched for him, and he was eventually granted a pardon by
President
Franklin D. Roosevelt.