- Fortunio Bonanova
Fortunio Bonanova is the pseudonym of Josep Lluís Moll (
January 13 ,1895 - 1969), who was abaritone singer and a film, theater, and television actor. He occasionally worked as a producer and director.According to
Lluis Fàbregas Cuixart , the pseudonym "Fortunio Bonanova" referred to his desire to seek fortune, and his love of the Bonanova neighborhood in his nativePalma de Mallorca .As a young man, living under his birthname, he was a professional
telegraph operator. He studiedmusic with the Italian Giovachini. In 1921, he debuted as a singer in "Tannhäuser", at the Teatre Principal in Palma. That year, along with a group ofMajorca n intellectuals andJorge Luis Borges (who was briefly living in Majorca with his parents and sister), he signed theUltraist Manifesto , using the name Fortunio Bonanova.Also in 1921, he appeared in a silent film of "
Don Juan Tenorio " by the brothers Baños, which was shown the following year inNew York City andHollywood . He would later direct his own "Don Juan" in 1924.In 1927, he acted in "Love of Sonya", directed by
Albert Parker and starringGloria Swanson . In 1932 he had small parts in Hollywood productions featuringJoan Bennett andMary Astor . En the same period, he appeared in New York in severalopera s and, more notably, in thezarzuela s "La Canción del Olvido " ("The song of forgetting"), "La Duquesa del Tabarín " ("The Duchess of Tabarín"), "Los Gavilanes ", and "La Montería ". In 1934, he returned toSpain , where he had a major role in the film "El Desaparecido" ("He who disappeared") written and directed byAntonio Graciani . In 1935 he acted and sang in the film "Poderoso Caballero" ("A Big Guy"), directed byMàximo Nossik .In 1936, with the outbreak of the
Spanish Civil War , he returned to the United States, where he played the role of Captain Bill in a film called "Capitán Tormenta", directed byJules Bernhardt . A sequence of increasingly larger acting and singing roles mostly in English-language films followed, especially after 1940; among his roles were Susan's opera coach in "Citizen Kane " (1941), General Sebastiano in "Five Graves to Cairo " (1943), Fernando in "For Whom the Bell Tolls" (1943), Sam Garlopis in "Double Indemnity" (1944) and a singingChristopher Columbus in "Where Do We Go From Here?". He continued for the next several decades in a miscellany of character roles.Bonanova was also an uncredited technical consultant for the film "
Blood and Sand " (1941), and produced and appeared in the Spanish-language film "La Inmaculada" (the title is a name of the Virgin Mary, cognate to the English word "Immaculate"; 1939).Bonanova died in 1969 in
Woodland, California of acerebral hemorrhage .References
*Catalina Aguiló, "Fortunio Bonanova : un home de llegenda"
"Much of the material in this article comes from the corresponding article in the Catalan Wikipedia".
External links
* [http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0093769/ Fortunio Bonanova on IMDB]
* [http://www.geocities.com/vienna/1059/operalis.html Opera singers in the movies]
* [http://www.cinefania.com/persona.php/Fortunio+Bonanova/ Fortunio Bonanova on Cinefania]
* [http://www.rottentomatoes.com/p/FortunioBonanova-1020243/ Fortunio Bonanova on Rotten Tomatoes]
*ibdb|66907
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