the actor closest to and behind Buñuel

The things I didn’t know well in the 60s and 70s were the very important films. There were years with long dark times, with problems of work and money, also with infamous movies, with crises that led them to depression and mental health, with excesses in drinking, love and sports that More than once they were broken inside. In a car accident in 1964, he returned to the actress from a night flamenco dance competition in Madrid, where he saved the life of milagro, leaving scars on his beloved and badly bruised arm.

Además, y tras haber sido star of French cinema – but not only – during 50 years, and for the same reason, I also felt the pain of those young filmmakers of the New Spanish Cinema, because they also replaced Fernando Fernán Gómez, who gave them the sword.

Los santos innocents He offered her that intergenerational success and prestige They stabilized their life and career. There were immediate antecedents that foreshadowed this summer moment.

Mario Camus – who supported her as a secondary but essential character in the series Fortunata and Jacinta (1980) – I called him in 1982 to close the deal and said he was a writer who asked and traveled to the cafe La Delicia de It fulfills her (1982), a short article that Rabal Convirtió with your facundia curler in case of great light.

Two more preparatory hits of eclosion with Los santos innocents of Pacorrabá – as the villagers of Murcia call them – were important: he beat the pícar and punished Ginése en la para él the legendary You bastard (1983), Miguel Hermoso, and thanks to the writer Rocabrun in Epilogue (1983), Gonzalo Suarez. In 1984 I brought it to her National Film Award.

Paco Rabal is the only Spanish actor – and I don’t know that there is another in the world – with films that have won the main prize at three of the most important international festivals: Cannes (Viridian), Venice (Belle de jour) and Berlin (It fulfills her).

He is the only actor with films that won the top prize at Cannes (‘Viridiana’), Venice (‘Belle de jour’) and Berlin (‘La colmena’).

VIRIDIAN. Luis Buñuel gave it to Rabal in Mexico el problemático cura galdosiano de Nazarene (1958). The Buñuelian decision began to take shape in real life Prisoner of the sea (1957), the first film by Italian Gill Pontecorvo. Buñuel was still wondering until I spoke to her as a speaker History of radio (1955), a wonderful comedy about Falangist José Luis Sáenz de Heredia, whose life the Aragonese filmmaker must have saved during the civil war.

Sáenz de Heredia, son of José Antonio Prima de Rivera, imitator of the Franco movement and filmmaker with various good films in his irregular filmography God to Rabal, providing a clear view of his well-known communist idea, the protagonist of a remarkable and successful comedy Everything is possible in Granada (1954) and also the least popular These fuses of hope (1958), Carlist official.

En NazareneBuñuel and Rabal were cast as “tío” and “sobrino”—according to the director’s name— a family friend for lifeappointment and correspondence fraud. Return to Spain in time for the trip Viridian (1961), Buñuel pushed his “sobrino” to make Jorge, the very first wife of his wife (Silvia Pinal), who, thanks to torpedo censorship, ends up playing with a nun and a child, Ramona (Margarita Lozano), a clear allusion to a sexual threesome. The Palme de Oro in Cannes, the support of the Vatican and the total ban of the film in Spain since 1977.

Viridian It was manufactured by the integrated company Uninci communist and liberal artists and intellectuals to create a distinctive cinema and of which Rabal was my member. His two unique films with Juan Antonio Bardem – amén de la narración en off de Arrival (1958)-, also produced Uninci: Sonatas (1959), where he was the Marquis de Bradomín, and more of a toreador in his filmography, A las cinco de la late (1960).

Third year The last collaboration between Buñuel and Rabal was Belle de jour (1966), in which the actor portrayed the brief character of Hippolyte, a Murcian who visits a brothel where prostitutes live in the beautiful and middle-class house of Séverine (Catherine Deneuve).

If Buñuel uses the three big diamonds in his crown as an actor, the filmmaker who most often directed them was Rafael Gilanother man tied to Frank’s regime, a very skilled craftsman and warm-hearted character, with whom he was after his escape intervention – not included in the final assembly – in Spendthrift (1946) when he was an electrician at Chamartín Studios, since 1972, the films have been shown at least once. War of the Gods (1953), El beso de Judas (1954), Murió is quince años (1954) or Currito de la Cruz (1965), among others.

From those 50 years and from that context, two very interesting films were created: Honor of the castle (1950), with the first protagonist of Luis Escobar – the impulsor, with José Tamayo, of his short but jugosa theatrical career – and Behind you is the fireplace (1953), Francisco Rovira Beleta, con la que ganó el award for the best actor in San Sebastián.

INTERNATIONAL. He was born in a poor house in Cuesta de Gos, he arrived in Águilas (Murcia), a miner’s boy and an illiterate mother, with the mayor mayor (Damián) and a younger sister (Lola), crucial places in his life, Rabal grew up in an environment of great need. His father, his brother and his father worked on the construction of Valle de los Caídos. He was a street vendor and diner.

A great story, a great determination to learn and help some people like the poet Dámaso Alonso – his old “rico” from the Chamartín district – inspired him to become a great actor, also a good flamenco and reciter, composer of poems and poems and director of short films.

Apuesto and manly, with a decidedly rural complexion, with a strong and muscular voiceI have kept her shaped for years, with the help of her smile and her compassion, a more polite and versatile expression, also on the skin with a ready bald head and covered hair and hair.

It made for an impressive international career. If you are obliged to add here a very incomplete list of directors and titles that stand out, the informed reader will appreciate: José María Forqué (Amanecer at Puerta Oscura1957), Leopoldo Torre Nilsson (A hand in a trap1960), Michelangelo Antonioni (Eclipse1961), Jorge Grau (Noche de Verano1962), Carlos Saura (Llanto for a bandit1963), Jacques Rivette (Religious1966), Luchino Visconti (Las brujas1966), Glauber Rocha (Short hair1970), Pedro Olea (Suffering1974), Valerio Zurlini (Desert turtles1976), William Friedkin (Bad load1977), Bigas Luna (Renaissance1980), Fernando Trueba (I’m proud1983), Francisco Regueiro (our father1985), Jaime de Armiñán (las series Juncal –1989– year National glory –1993–), Vicente Aranda (Quiet time1986), José Luis García Sánchez (Divine words1987), Pedro Almodóvar (Atame1989), Alain Tanner (The man who lost his shadow1991), José Luis Cuerda (Both in heaven and on earth1995), Arturo Ripstein (The Gospel of Miracles1998)…

Casado since 1951 with an actress Asuncion Balaguer (1925-2019), the untouchable pillar of his life, the mother of his children Teresa and Benito, Rabal, in August 2001, flew with her from Montreal and London with destiny to Madrid. The actor, afflicted with advanced emphysema, I suffered a respiratory crisis that I could not overcome weighs the emergency landing of the plane in Bordeaux and hospitalization in the French city.

In 1999 he had ganado el Goya por Goya en BordeauxCarlos Saura, and his conmovedora interpretation of the life and agony of death of the painter.