Fortunio Bonanova
Acting
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.
Fullname:
Date of Birth:
1895-01-13
Country:
Palma de Mallorca, Mallorca, Balearic Islands, Spain
Media of
Fortunio Bonanova
Photos (21)
Filmography of
Fortunio Bonanova
Comisario Fenton
... 1964
Inspector
... 1964
Spanish Bank Manager
... 1963
Fernando Christophe
... 1959
Serge Bolanos
... 1958
Courbet
... 1957
Francisco Servente
... 1956
Carmen Trivago
... 1955
Senor
... 1955
Senor Corelli, Opera Singer
... 1954
TV host
... 1953
Mexican Minister
... 1953
Mandy, hotel owner
... 1953
Dr. Marafioti
... 1953
Television Performer
... 1953
Sheriff Antoine Chighizola
... 1953
Ambassador DeMarco
... 1951
Grazzi
... 1950
Ricardo Domingos
... 1950
Feruccio di Ravallo
... 1950
John Mingo
... 1949
Don Serafino Lopez
... 1948
Sebastian Ortega
... 1948
Plinio
... 1948
Don Manuel Ortega
... 1947
The Governor's Cousin
... 1947
... 1947
Antonio Morales
... 1947
Don Carlos
... 1946
Don Pedro Vargas
... 1946
Mario Alvini
... 1945
Prof. Zorado
... 1945
Insp. Luis Carvero
... 1945
Gargano - Chief of Police
... 1945
... 1945
Christopher Columbus
... 1945
Senor Renaldo Da Silva
... 1944
Signor Cellini
... 1944
Sam Garlopis
... 1944
Charlie
... 1944
Old Baba
... 1944
Tomaso Bozanni
... 1944
... 1943
Fernando
... 1943
Waiter
... 1943
Gen. Sebastiano
... 1943
Don Miguel (uncredited)
... 1942
Simon Cordoba
... 1942
Anton Copoulos
... 1942
Chef
... 1942
Mike - Nightclub Owner (uncredited)
... 1942
Buano
... 1942
Armando Rivero
... 1941
Louie - Headwaiter
... 1941
Impresario
... 1941
Mr. Pretto, the Hotel Manager
... 1941
Pedro Espinosa
... 1941
Signor Matiste
... 1941
Pereira, the Headwaiter
... 1941
Sentry (uncredited)
... 1940
Hotel Manager
... 1940
Orchestra Leader
... 1940
African Police Corporal
... 1938
Barrera
... 1938
Tenor
... 1938
... 1936
... 1935
Pietro Rafaelo
... 1932
Rodriguez
... 1932
... 1928
Don Juan Tenorio
... 1922