Named in 1923 for silent movie star Antonio Moreno (1887-1967) and his wealthy wife Daisy (1884-1933), who had recently married and moved into their 5 acre Silver Lake estate. Said estate was actually on Micheltorena, but Daisy also owned the land around it, which soon became the Moreno Highlands tract. As for Tony Moreno, he was born Antonio Garrido Monteagudo in Madrid, came to the U.S. in 1902, and started taking bit parts in 1912. Three years later, he was a bona fide matinee idol. He went on to star in the silent hits It (opposite Clara Bow) and The Temptress (opposite Greta Garbo) and successfully made the leap into sound pictures, with plum roles in the 1950s classics The Searchers and Creature from the Black Lagoon. He was equally famous for his marriage to Daisy Canfield Danziger, the freshly-divorced Beverly Hills heiress – see BH’s own Moreno Drive for the story – but their Silver Lake sojourn ended in 1929 when Daisy donated the estate for use as a girls’ home. (It’s been a rental property in recent years.) The couple later separated, but Daisy announced that things were “patched up” just two days before she died in a car crash off Mulholland.
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