Fortunio Bonanova
Born January 13, 1895 (Age: 131)
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Palma de Mallorca, Mallorca, Balearic Islands, Spain
Biography
Fortunio Bonanova, pseudonym of Josep Lluís Moll, (13 January 1895 – 2 April 1969) was a Spanish baritone 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 native Palma. As a young man, living under his birthname, he was a professional telegraph operator. He studied music 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 of Majorcan intellectuals and Jorge Luis Borges (who was briefly living in Majorca with his parents and sister), he signed the Ultraist 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 in New York City and Hollywood. He later directed his own Don Juan in 1924. In 1927, he acted in Love of Sunya, directed by Albert Parker and starring Gloria Swanson. In 1932 he had small parts in Hollywood productions featuring Joan Bennett and Mary Astor. In the same period, he appeared in New York in several operas as well as the zarzuelas 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 to Spain, where he had a major role in the film El Desaparecido ("The disappeared one") written and directed by Antonio Graciani. In 1935 he acted and sang in the film Poderoso Caballero ("A Big Guy"), directed by Màximo 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 by Jules Bernhardt. A sequence of increasingly larger acting and singing roles mostly in English-language films followed, especially after 1940. Among his roles were Signor Matiste, Susan Alexander Kane's opera coach in Citizen Kane (1941); General Sebastiano in Five Graves to Cairo (1943); Don Miguel in The Black Swan (1942); Fernando in For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943); Sam Garlopis in Double Indemnity (1944); and a singing Christopher Columbus in Where Do We Go From Here?. He continued for the next several decades in a miscellany of character roles.
Fortunio Bonanova, pseudonym of Josep Lluís Moll, (13 January 1895 – 2 April 1969) was a Spanish baritone 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 native Palma.
As a young man, living under his birthname, he was a professional telegraph operator. He studied music 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 of Majorcan intellectuals and Jorge Luis Borges (who was briefly living in Majorca with his parents and sister), he signed the Ultraist 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 in New York City and Hollywood. He later directed his own Don Juan in 1924.
In 1927, he acted in Love of Sunya, directed by Albert Parker and starring Gloria Swanson. In 1932 he had small parts in Hollywood productions featuring Joan Bennett and Mary Astor. In the same period, he appeared in New York in several operas as well as the zarzuelas 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 to Spain, where he had a major role in the film El Desaparecido ("The disappeared one") written and directed by Antonio Graciani. In 1935 he acted and sang in the film Poderoso Caballero ("A Big Guy"), directed by Màximo 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 by Jules Bernhardt. A sequence of increasingly larger acting and singing roles mostly in English-language films followed, especially after 1940. Among his roles were Signor Matiste, Susan Alexander Kane's opera coach in Citizen Kane (1941); General Sebastiano in Five Graves to Cairo (1943); Don Miguel in The Black Swan (1942); Fernando in For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943); Sam Garlopis in Double Indemnity (1944); and a singing Christopher Columbus in Where Do We Go From Here?. He continued for the next several decades in a miscellany of character roles.
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Filmography
Death Whistles the Blues
1964
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as Comisario Fenton
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Age: 69
The Ballad of Hector the Stowaway Dog
1964
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as Inspector
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Age: 68
The Running Man
1963
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as Spanish Bank Manager
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Age: 68
Thunder in the Sun
1959
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as Fernando Christophe
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Age: 64
The Saga of Hemp Brown
1958
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as Serge Bolanos
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Age: 63
Jaguar
1956
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as Francisco Servente
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Age: 61
Kiss Me Deadly
1955
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as Carmen Trivago
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Age: 60
New York Confidential
1955
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as Senor
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Age: 60
With This Ring
1954
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as Senor Corelli, Opera Singer
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Age: 58
The Girl on The Roof
1953
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as TV host
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Age: 58
Conquest of Cochise
1953
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as Mexican Minister
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Age: 58
Second Chance
1953
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as Mandy, hotel owner
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Age: 58
So This Is Love
1953
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as Dr. Marafioti
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Age: 58
The Moon Is Blue
1953
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as Television Performer
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Age: 58
Thunder Bay
1953
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as Sheriff Antoine Chighizola
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Age: 58
September Affair
1950
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as Grazzi
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Age: 55
Nancy Goes to Rio
1950
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as Ricardo Domingos
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Age: 55
Whirlpool
1950
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as Feruccio di Ravallo
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Age: 55
No Image
Hit the Hay
1945
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as Mario Alvini
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Age: 50
Man Alive
1945
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as Prof. Zorado
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Age: 50
The Red Dragon
1945
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as Insp. Luis Carvero
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Age: 50
A Bell for Adano
1945
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as Gargano - Chief of Police
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Age: 50
La pícara Susana
1945
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as
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Age: 50
Where Do We Go from Here?
1945
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as Christopher Columbus
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Age: 50
The Black Swan
1942
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as Don Miguel (uncredited)
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Age: 47
Girl Trouble
1942
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as Simon Cordoba
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Age: 47
Larceny, Inc.
1942
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as Anton Copoulos
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Age: 47
Obliging Young Lady
1942
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as Chef
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Age: 47
Mr. and Mrs. North
1942
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as Buano
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Age: 47
Four Jacks and a Jill
1942
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as Mike - Nightclub Owner (uncredited)
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Age: 47
Two Latins from Manhattan
1941
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as Armando Rivero
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Age: 46
A Yank in the R.A.F.
1941
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as Louie - Headwaiter
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Age: 46
Unfinished Business
1941
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as Impresario
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Age: 46
Moon Over Miami
1941
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as Mr. Pretto, the Hotel Manager
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Age: 46
Blood and Sand
1941
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as Pedro Espinosa
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Age: 46
Citizen Kane
1941
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as Signor Matiste
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Age: 46
That Night in Rio
1941
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as Pereira, the Headwaiter
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Age: 46
A Successful Calamity
1932
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as Pietro Rafaelo
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Age: 37
Careless Lady
1932
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as Rodriguez
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Age: 37