As a performer, he was best known in the 1960s with prominent film roles in West Side Story and Hootenanny Hoot, and danced alongside Marilyn Monroe and Sandra Dee.
[8] Navarro began dancing in schools at the age of 17[9] and received a scholarship to continue his study and joined the Lester Horton dancers.
Navarro became a professional with the Lester Horton Dancers[12] and worked in a number of venues among which was the Moulin Rouge night club in Los Angeles (where he met his future wife, Leona Gage, in 1958).
[12] When the one-year contract on that show expired, he joined Juliet Prowse whom he had been teaching dance, and toured with her for 18 months.
However, the success of West Side Story opened up a number of opportunities in film including a dual role in Take Her, She's Mine alongside Sandra Dee, where he played both a French lover and an Apache dancer.
[15] Whilst performing in Hootenanny Hoot, Navarro assisted choreographer Hal Belfer in working out many of the steps in the new dance being promoted by the movie (at the time hoping to "nudge the Twist and Bossa Nova to one side"[12]).
[14] Navarro danced in the film adaptation of My Fair Lady and as Nick Novarro, he had a major role in Scream of the Butterfly in 1965 alongside Nelida Lobato.
After his final promotion stop for Hootenanny Hoot, he flew straight to Hot Springs, Arkansas to open Juliet Prowse's night club act there.
Other TV credits in the early 1990s included Delusion in 1991 and La Toya Jackson's Playboy Celebrity Centerfold in 1994.
[24] After his relationship with Prowse, Navarro met Dagmar Wrede, a Swedish ex-ballerina and Las Vegas showgirl[25](although sometimes reported as hailing from Germany)[26] and married her in 1964.