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Enrique Rosas was born on 8 April 1875 in Puebla, Puebla, Mexico. He was a director and producer, known for The Grey Automobile (1919), La soñadora (1917) and La tigresa (1917). He was married to Guadalupe Priego Durán. He died on 9 August 1920 in Mexico City, Distrito Federal, Mexico.- Director
- Actor
- Writer
With just one film Mario Peixoto left a mark on cinema with his acclaimed masterpiece Limit (1931). The surrealistic and artistic film launched his film career but unfortunately due to several circumstances he never managed to release another film and outdo himself. Many Brazilian filmmakers were heavily influenced by the powerful images he created in Limit (1931).
Peixoto was born on 25 March, 1908 in Brussels, Belgium but some sources claim he was born in Rio de Janeiro. Coming from a wealthy family he went to study in England and at the time he dreamed of being an actor but his family against it. When he returned to Brazil after studying the films he saw abroad, during an informal conversation with friends about creating a new Brazilian cinema, more artistic and original, he was convinced to write a project that later on was accepted. That project was Limit (1931) and the rest is history. At age 21 he was writing, directing, producing and acting on the film, later on considered one of the greatest Brazilian films ever made.
His subsequent project "Onde a Terra Acaba" which starred his friend Carmen Santos was lost on a fire; and his third "Maré Baixa" never got filmed but he continued to write screenplays and ideas for a new film and even tried to return to directing many years after his classic film was released. Slightly recluse, sometimes he was interviewed and appeared in the short documentary O Homem do Morcego (1980).- Director
- Cinematographer
- Editor
Pioneer of Brazilian cinema. Humberto Mauro began his career in the provinces in 1926 and was brought to Rio de Janeiro by producer-director Adhemar Gonzaga in 1930. He went on to direct several features which were praised for their uniquely Brazilian style - notably Ganga Bruta (1933) - as well as making over 230 shorts for the National Institute of Educational Cinema. Several of the latter, including A Velha a Fiar (1964), became classics of the genre.- Writer
- Producer
- Director
Director of two classic films of Mexican Cinema, Compadre Mendoza, El (1933) and ¡Vámonos con Pancho Villa! (1935), De Fuentes began his career as second assistant director in Santa (1931), the first "talkie" produced in Mexico. His technical abilities promoted him to direct Anónimo, El (1932). De Fuentes is considered a pioneer in Mexican movies and a truly gifted director who combined superb technical abilities with a extraordinary sense for visu al narrative. His best films are those made on the early years of Mexican film industry. He "invented" a genre: the Mexican comedy (comedia ranchera) with Allá en el Rancho Grande (1936), the first Mexican film with great success in foreign markets -a sort of musical Como Agua Para Chocolate (1992) of the 30s. He discovered Gabriel Figueroa and pioneered genres such as horror, melodrama and historical. De Fuentes was the first Mexican director who made a film in color: Asi se Quiere en Jalisco (1942). He also was the first to make a film in coproduction with another country: Jalisco Canta en Sevilla (1948), coproduced with Spain.- Writer
- Director
- Producer
Juan Bustillo Oro was born on 2 June 1904 in Mexico City, Distrito Federal, Mexico. He was a writer and director, known for El hombre sin rostro (1950), Vino el remolino y nos alevantó (1950) and Las tandas del principal (1949). He died on 10 June 1989 in Mexico City, Distrito Federal, Mexico.- Director
- Writer
- Producer
Raphael J. Sevilla was born on 3 September 1902 in Mexico City, Distrito Federal, Mexico. He was a director and writer, known for Irma la mala (1936), Heart of a Bandit (1934) and At the Edge of a Palm Grove (1937). He was married to Asunción Catelazo Glennie. He died on 2 January 1975 in Mexico City, Distrito Federal, Mexico.- Director
- Producer
- Writer
Born in Brazil in 1897, Alberto Cavalcanti began his film career in France in 1920, working as writer, art director and director. He directed the avant-garde documentary Nothing But Time (1926) ("Nothing but Time"), a portrait of the lives of Parisian workers in a single day. He moved to England in 1933 to join the GPO Film Unit under John Grierson, working as a sound engineer (Night Mail (1936)) then as a producer. He went to work for Ealing Studios during the war, initially as head of Michael Balcon's short film unit until 1946, again working as an art director, producer and director. His notable films as director include Champagne Charlie (1944), The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby (1947) and I Became a Criminal (1947). After the latter film he moved back to Brazil. There he made Song of the Sea (1953) ("The Song of the Sea") and A Real Woman (1954) ("Woman of Truth") with his own production company. However, his progressive political views caught the attention of the the right-wing Brazilian authorities, and Cavalcanti thought it prudent to return to Europe in 1954. He eventually settled in France, where he continued his work in television. He died in Paris in 1982.- Actor
- Writer
- Director
Emilio "El Indio" Fernandez Romo is the most famous person in the history of Mexican movies. For an era he symbolized Mexico due to his violent machismo, rooted in the Revolution of 1910-17, and because of his staunch commitment to Mexican cultural nationalism. Born to a Mexican (Mestizo) father and a Native American Kickapoo mother, Emilio was himself the "mestizaje" (mestizo) that his films would later glorify.
The teenaged Fernandez abandoned his studies to serve as an officer in the Huertista rebellion, which broke out on 12/4/1923, led by Gen. Adolfo de la Huerta. On July 20th of that year, Pancho Villa had been ambushed and murdered; one theory was that the killing was done by agents of Mexican President Álvaro Obregón. Obregon, when he served as a general during the revolution, had defeated Villa in four successive battles collectively known as the Battle of Celaya, which was the largest military confrontation in Latin-American history before the 1982 Falklands War.
Under the Constitution of 1917 that Obregon himself helped write, Mexican presidents could not succeed themselves (Obregon would later have the constitution amended so he could serve a second, non-consecutive term; after winning the presidential election of 1928, he was assassinated before his inauguration). Obregon had won the presidency in 1920 after inciting a successful military revolt against President Venustiano Carranza, who had planned on naming Ignacio Bonillas as his successor instead of Obregon, who believed that he deserved it. The revolt began when the governor of the state of Sonora, Gen. Huerta, broke with President Carranza and declared the secession of Sonora. This was a signal for the beginning of the successful uprising against Carranza, led by Obregon and supported by Gen. Plutarco Elías Calles. After Carranza was killed in an ambush, Huerta served as provisional president of Mexico from 6/1/1920 to 12/1/1920, until elections could be held. When Obregon won the federal election, Huerta became Minister of Finance in the new government.
Huerta considered himself the natural successor to President Obregon, just as Obregon had considered himself Carranza's natural successor. The murdered Villa was seen as an ally of Huerta, who had publicly announced his candidacy for the presidency. Obregon, however, planned to remain in power by handpicking his successor, a tradition that lasted throughout 20th-century Mexican politics. When he named his anti-clerical Minister of the Interior, the former Gen. Calles, as his heir, Huerta rose up in a rebellion that eventually affected half of the Mexican army. Like Huerta a native of Sonora and a former general in the Mexican army, Calles had preceded him as governor and military ruler of their home state from 1915-16. Huerta thought his service and loyalty to Obregon should have brought him the presidency, but Mexican presidents, not allowed to succeed themselves and limited (mostly) to one term, tried to extend their power by naming political puppets as successors (Calles would outdo Obregon by controlling the Mexican presidency outright or through puppets from 1924-34).
The rebellion was a serious threat to Obregon, but he was able to quash it by using loyal army units, battalions of workers and farmers and intervention by the US. By the time the revolt ended in March 1924, 54 generals and 7,000 soldiers were gone, either killed in battle, executed, exiled or dismissed. Obregon banished Huerta to exile in the US (where he lived in Los Angeles, supporting himself as a music teacher). This was the cauldron of violence and nationalism in which the young Fernandez came into his manhood. He received a 20-year prison sentence for his participation in the rebellion on the losing side. Escaping prison by following Huerta into exile in Los Angeles, Fernandez absorbed the rudiments of filmmaking as a bit player and extra working in Hollywood in the 1920s and early 1930s. With the election of Lázaro Cárdenas as president in 1934, the Huertista rebels were granted an amnesty (Huerta himself was recalled from exile by Cardenas in 1935 and served in several posts, including Inspector General of Foreign Consulates and Director General of Civil Pensions). Fernandez returned to Mexico in 1934 and began working in the Mexican movie industry as a screenwriter and actor. His Indian looks, which gave him his nickname "El Indio," also brought him his first lead role, playing an Indian in Janitzio (1935). Due to his imposing physical presence and Indian countenance, El Indio was cast as bandits, charros (cowboys) and revolutionaries.
The Cardenas government of 1934-40 established the framework in which the "Golden Age of Mexican Cinema" could be realized. The political system that dominated Mexico for over half a century was consolidated during his regime. The government incorporated trade unions, campesino (peasant) organizations and middle-class professionals and office workers into the ruling Party of the Mexican Revolution (later the Party of the Institutional Revolution, or PRI). Cardenas oversaw the redistribution of millions of acres of land to peasants and the expansion of collective bargaining rights and wage increases to workers.
Cardenas and all subsequent PRM/PRI presidents (all presidents of Mexico in the 20th century beginning with Calles were PRM/PRI members; Vicente Fox was the first from outside the party in three-quarters of a century) maintained political control of Mexico by granting favors and concessions to their constituencies inside the corporatist party structure in exchange for worker and campesino organizations delivering votes and suppressing discontent among their constituencies. The PRM/PRI itself created an organizational structure for the government that allowed citizens access to the political realm, in the sense that they could interface with government agencies. Once inside the government machine, seeking redress, favors, etc., the non-connected citizen was led through a maze of layers of bureaucracy that never permitted a satisfactory result. Citizens caught in the maze were eventually frustrated and discouraged, but the ingenious if disingenuous system worked as it gave them input--just no guaranteed output. By frustrating them within an institutional structure, the PRM/PRI governments--both federal and state--took the fight out of them. The PRM/PRI sought to control frustration that had led to violence in the past, particularly among the generals who had the power to destabilize the society and economy. That government structure thus served as a homeostatic device for the people's frustration, relieving it and never allowing it to build up again into a revolutionary situation.
Cardenas' most notable achievement arguably was the nationalization of Mexico's oil industry. After unsuccessfully trying to negotiate better terms with Mexican Eagle--the holding company owned by Royal Dutch/Shell and Standard Oil of New Jersey--Cardenas nationalized Mexico's petroleum reserves and expropriated the equipment of the foreign oil companies on 3/18/38. A spontaneous six-hour parade broke out in Mexico City to celebrate the event. Unlike Fidel Castro's nationalization of foreign assets in Cuba, Shell and SONJ were compensated for their expropriated assets. Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex) and the Mexican model became a beacon for other oil-producing nations seeking to gain control over their own energy resources from foreign companies. Cardenas was the only PRM/PRI president who did not enrich himself while in office. After retiring as Minister of Defense in 1945--the post he took after relinquishing the presidency--he assumed a modest lifestyle. He spent the last years of his life supervising irrigation projects and promoting education and free medical care for the poor. This was the man who set the tone of the modern Mexico that arose from the revolution and civil wars of the 1920s, who cleared the ground for the economic boom of the 1940s in which the "Golden Age of Mexican Cinema" reached its apogee. Classic Mexican cinema has mostly been ignored in the US due to the language barrier and a colonialist mindset suffused with racism. When Mexican cinema has been addressed by those north of the border, the primary focus fell on the brilliant cinematography of Gabriel Figueroa, who shot films for John Ford and John Huston, or on former Hollywood star Dolores Del Río. Fernandez's reputation was so great that he was even appreciated in the US in his lifetime, but his notoriety as a sort of wildman of the Mexican movie industry and his appearance as an actor in Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch (1969) overshadowed his greatness as a director. While Mexico has often served as a locale for American films--the genres of sweet (white) young things imperiled by swarthy Mexican bandits and of Americans in revolutionary Mexico, to say nothing of Zorro and The Cisco Kid--have been part of the Yankee cinema since the East Coast-based film companies began relocating to southern California in the early 1910s. Gringo Warner Baxter won the second Oscar ever awarded for Best Actor playing The Cisco Kid in a role originally intended for Raoul Walsh, of all people. Mexico has been the site of such blockbuster films as Viva Villa! (1934), Juarez (1939), Viva Zapata! (1952), Vera Cruz (1954), The Professionals (1966) and "The Wild Bunch," but except for La caza del oro (1972), a Johnny-Come-Lately to the genre, they seldom featured Mexican actors in anything other than bit parts, if at all, with the exception of Anthony Quinn, one of the few Mexican-Americans to achieve superstar status. Mexican performers taken up by Hollywood --such as Ramon Novarro, Rita Hayworth, John Gavin and Raquel Welch--were, like half-Mexican baseball great Ted Williams (born in San Diego), de-ethnicized in a sort of cultural ethnic cleansing. Salma Hayek, who is of mixed Mexican and Lebanese parentage, is arguably the first Mexican since Lupe Velez and Dolores del Rio to cross over as a Hollywood superstar and remain identifiably Mexican (even at the dawn of a new millennium, she was urged by her Hollywood agents to play up her Arabic ethnicity, even with anti-Arab feeling rife in Hollywood and the US at large--their "reasoning" was that no one would go see a Mexican in movies since their cleaning ladies were Mexican),
Until the 1990s, with Like Water for Chocolate (1992) ("Like Water for Chocolate"), Mexican films themselves seldom strayed in the Yankee consciousness, except for the rare one like The Pearl (1947), based on a novel by Californian John Steinbeck and a prize-winner at the Venice Film Festival. "La Perla" was directed by Fernandez, the greatest director to come out of Mexico's golden age of cinema. The first Mexican feature was released in 1906, though production often was eclipsed by political and economic conditions. There were documentaries made about the Mexican Revolution in the 1910s, but very few films were made in the 1920s. Sergei Eisenstein's trip to Mexico in the early 1930s to make Que Viva Mexico (1979), which remained unfinished due to his problems with his American backer, Upton Sinclair, injected a new enthusiasm into the Mexican movie industry.
While most American film historians place the Golden Age firmly in the 1940s--some specifically assigning it to the period 1943-46 and others extending it until the mid-'50s--the Golden Age of Mexican Cinema properly stretches back to 1936, peaks in the mid-'40s (when the Mexican cinema receives international recognition; two of Fernandez's films won the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival and were nominated for the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festivals) and terminates in the mid-'50s, with the end of Fernandez's 25-film collaboration with cinematographer Gabriel Figueroa. Figueroa, the Mexican movie industry's first great director, inaugurated the Golden Age in 1936 with two hits, Out on the Big Ranch (1936) ("Out at Big Ranch") and Let's Go with Pancho Villa (1936) ("Let's Go with Pancho Villa"). Both were "political message" movies addressing the social and cultural issues lying at the heart of Mexican Revolution. "Vamonos con Pancho Villa" has the distinction of being the first feature produced at the Mexican government-subsidized studio Cinematografica Latino Americana S.A., while "Allá en el Rancho Grande" made Tito Guízar a star. Guizar eventually became the Mexican movie industry's first superstar by playing in the "comedias rancheras" (ranch comedies) genre that was the most popular type of film in Mexico in the 1930s. A hit with audiences throughout Latin America, "comedias rancheras" were set in an idyllic, pre-revolutionary Mexico. The vaudevillian Mario Moreno, who became a Latin-American superstar under the name Cantinflas, made his short-subject debut in 1936 and would soon become the Latin-American film industry's leading comedian when he made his feature-film debut in You're Missing the Point (1940) ("There is the Detail"). The Cantinflas character is rooted in the image of the "pelado," or poor white trash, and his character deflates respectable society through his sharp repartee. Peace--i.e., a lack of overt domestic political turmoil--laid the groundwork for the development of a truly popular indigenous cinema in the 1930s and '40s. The comedias rancheras and Cantinflas comedies helped make the Mexican cinema commercially viable. With Hollywood distracted by turning out propaganda and military training films during World War II, there was an opening in Latin America that the Mexican industry filled. Without competition from Hollywood, the Mexican movie industry dominated Latin-American cinemas for most of the decade. Movie production tripled in the 1940s compared to the previous decade. The Mexican film industry underwent a consolidation and developed a star system, some of whom crossed over to achieve international recognition. The peak of the Golden Age of Mexican cinema came in the 1940s, spurred by rapid industrialization and a resulting affluence--although inequitably distributed--caused by trade with the US, as World War II boosted American demand for Mexican raw materials. The Mexican movie industry became the world's largest producer of Spanish-language films, helped by the fact that the other large producers, Argentina and Spain, were headed by fascist governments. Though the Mexican government was conservative and repressive in the 1940s, it encouraged the production of nationalist films that helped articulate a Mexican identity. During the 1940s Mexican movie stars and directors became popular icons, and some even became public figures with effective political influence. Among the movie stars blossoming during the decade were Dolores del Rio, Pedro Infante, Jorge Negrete, Joaquín Pardavé and María Félix, while Fernandez and Figueroa became globally known. Luis Buñuel moved to Mexico and would direct some of the country's major movies in the following decade.
Mexican movies typically were genre pictures, melodramas, romances, musicals, comedies and horror, which addressed all aspects of Mexican society, from love stories about the "lumpen proletariat" to dramas about the Indians. Mexican movies are a mirror of Mexican society, including history (19th-century dictator Porfirio Díaz and his court, The Revolution and Villa and Emiliano Zapata), obsessions (both familial and erotic) and mythology (Indian and big-city culture). Mexican cinema did this using the classic genres of the the melodrama, the comedy (in its romantic, musical and ranchera versions, and slapstick and farce) and even the horror film. With its proximity to Hollywood, and the fact that many leading lights of the Mexican cinema were familiar with Hollywood production values, the indigenous movie industry set a high standard for itself, as it had to measure up to Hollywood product.
Fernandez made his motion picture debut as an actor in Chano Urueta's El destino (1928), but his early work in movies was in American westerns churned out by Monogram director John P. McCarthy, including the Bob Steele programmers The Oklahoma Cyclone (1930), The Land of Missing Men (1930), Headin' North (1930), The Sunrise Trail (1931) and the Tim McCoy "hoss opera" The Western Code (1932). After a supporting role in Enrico Caruso Jr.'s La buenaventura (1934), he made his return to Mexican pictures in 1934, starring in Heart of a Bandit (1934) and director Fernando de Fuentes' Cruz Diablo (1934).
Fernandez's first film as a director was La isla de la pasión (1942), in 1941, which he also wrote and in which he played a bit part. The movie starred Pedro Armendáriz, who Fernandez would cast in many of his films. Another favorite collaborator was his wife Columba Domínguez. El Indio rapidly gained a reputation as Mexico's premier director making populist dramas. His Maria Candelaria (1944) put Mexican film on the map when it won the Grand Prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 1946. It has been variously praised as "the highest triumph of Mexican plastic arts on celluloid" and as "a titanic promise for strictly patriotic [Mexican] cinema." French film critic Georges Sadoul, in his 1954 book "Histoire General du Cinema," praised the film for its "authentic" portrayal of rural Mexican life and for addressing race relations.
The film remains controversial in Mexico due to El Indio's aesthetic choices, which emphasized the exotic and primitive, and his representation of Mexican Indians, which some critics believed was inauthentic or "touristy." The nationalistic Fernandez wanted to articulate an idea of what it meant to be Mexican that was uniquely Mexican, and not influenced by Hollywood, whose films he felt were Americanizing Mexican cinema audiences. Terming his films "autos sacramentales [passion plays] of mexicanidad," Fernandez wanted to create a Mexican cinema that Mexicanized Mexicans. The film stars Dolores del Rio, the Hollywood movie star who had returned to Mexico after becoming disillusioned with the American movie industry, as the daughter of a prostitute trying to survive just before the Revolution. Set in the floating gardens of Xochimilco in Mexico City, del Rio's character is shunned by the locals, who are indigenous people. Her great desire is to marry her lover, played by Pedro Armendariz, but their romance proves to be star-crossed. Fernandez's direction was flawless, and Figueroa's black-and-white cinematography was masterful. The collaborators created one of the classics of not just Mexican movies but of world cinema. When El Indio and Figueroa were making "Maria Candelaria," they were part of a movement in which Mexican filmmakers were consciously attempting to create an indigenous art cinema that could compete with Hollywood product while simultaneously articulating a vision of Mexicans that was rooted in the "indigenismo" and "mestizophilia" of Mexican intellectuals. José Vasconcelos, the Minister of Education during the Obregon administration, was particularly influential due to his concepts of "mexicanos en potencia" and the cosmic race. In Vasconcelos' philosophy, the "barbarous" Indian was redeemed by a modernization program based on education, and by the assimilation of the Indians with the Caucausian Europeans into "la raza" of mestizos ("mestizaje"). Gabriel Figueroa was conscious of the fact that he and Fernandez, a creative team that became known as "Epoca de Oro," invented an idea of rural Mexico that did not actually exist. Figueroa established himself as the leader in imagining a new, post-revolutionary Mexican consciousness, through the vehicle of the visual image. A "painter in light," Figueroa learned his craft from Gregg Toland and Eduard Tisse, Eisenstein's cinematographer. Figueroa is credited with creating the classic Mexican film aesthetic in collaboration with El Indio and other film directors. In over 200 movies, he developed the classic imagery and aesthetic of Mexican cinema, which also influenced and was influenced by contemporary Mexican artists. Figueroa pioneered an indigenous visual vernacular that affected the muralist movement, and he has been referred to as the fourth of the most important Mexican muralist after Orozco, Diego Rivera and David Siqueiros. Siqueiros himself called Figueroa's cinematography "murals that travel."
In their 25 films together between 1942-58, El Indio and Figueroa created the idea of "mexicanidad" cinema while elevating the mestizaje (mixed-race) identity, as well as the status of the pre-Columbian culture. The epic visual style they developed was indebted to Eisenstein's unfinished "Que viva Mexico." Their style fetishized the Mexican landscape through beautiful, carefully composed, stationary long shots. For two decades Mexican art cinema was identified with the films resulting from the Fernandez-Figueroa collaboration. Their films not only affected Mexican audiences' collective identity, but they affected how their audiences, both domestic and global, viewed Mexico and its history.
The climax of "Maria Candelaria" was an homage to Carlos Navarro's classic "indigenista" film Janitzio (1935). The movie is evocative of the anti-clerical struggles engendered by the Revolution. The secularization of the Mexican state was begun with the 1910 Revolution, continued with the 1917 Constitution, and reached a violent apotheosis in the Cristero Rebellion of 1926-29, when the President tried to crack down on the Roman Catholic church. However, the anti-clericalism of the revolutionaries had to co-exist with the cult of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the symbol that has proved the most powerful and enduring in creating a Mexican national consciousness. Our Lady has served as a symbol for political struggles from the 19th-century wars of independence to the Cristero wars. On one level, "Maria Candelaria" is a paean to the cult of the Virgin Mary, a phenomenon present in much of classical Mexican cinema, which likely is one of the reasons the films Fernandez and Figueroa and others of the 1940s and 1950s proved so popular all over Latin America.
In 1946 Fernandez filmed an adaptation of John Steinbeck's novella "The Pearl," in Spanish- and English-language versions. Shot by Figueroa and starring El Indio's favorite actor, Pedro Armendariz, "La perla" won El Indio a nomination for Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, further solidifying his notoriety as a director and publicizing the Mexican movie industry. The film also won him the Golden Ariel for Best Picture at the 1948 Ariel Awards (the Mexican equivalent of the Oscars), and Fernandez, Figueroa, Armendariz and Juan García won Silver Ariels for Best Direction, Cinematography, Actor and Supporting Actor, respectively. Figueroa won a Golden Globe for Best Cinematography in 1949 from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association.
In 1948 Salón México (1949) was released, written and directed by Fernandez with cinematography by Figueroa. An urban melodrama, the film was groundbreaking in that it helped usher in a new genre, the "cabaretera" (cabaret) film, racier and just as commercial as the familiar genre of rancheras, which was then fading in popularity. The movie recreates the atmosphere of the famous Mexico City dance hall and won Marga López an Ariel Award for her role as the taxi dancer Mercedes. The movie featured a sensual soundtrack performed by the Afro-Cuban music group Son Clave de Oro. By the end of the 1940s Emilio Fernandez was the most famous and prestigious director in all of Latin America. He would continue his reign as Mexico's premier director into the mid-'50s, when his powers began to decline and Spanish amigra Luis Buñuel took over the title. As the most famous directors and biggest stars aged or died, Mexican cinema began to decline commercially, and the Golden Age of Mexican cinema came to an end (ironically, Bunuel's Mexican oeuvre strengthened as the national cinema went into decline and L'age d'or went into eclipse).
Although Fernandez and Figueroa last worked together in El puño del amo (1958), which starred El Indio's half-brother Jaime Fernández, the collaboration was essentially over by the mid-'50s when they made La rosa blanca (1954) and La Tierra del Fuego se apaga (1955). Their last great film together was La rebelión de los colgados (1954) (based on B. Traven's "Rebellion of the Hanged," it's English-language title), which starred Pedro Armendariz and Emiolio's half-brother Jaime Fernández, both of whom were nominated for Silver Ariel awards as Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor, respectively. Jaime Fernandez won the Ariel, as did Amanda del Llano for Best Supporting Actress, Gloria Schoemann for editing and José B. Carles for sound. Antonio Díaz Conde was nominated for a Silver Ariel for Best Score. As his collaboration with Fernandez waned, Figueroa's professional relationship with Bunuel waxed. Figueroa first served as director of photography on Bunuel's classic The Young and the Damned (1950), which won 11 Ariels in 1951, including the Golden Ariel as Best Picture in 1951 and awards for Best Cinematography for Figueroa and Best Director and Original Story for Bunuel. Their other films together were Nazarin (1959) ("This Strange Passion"; winner of the International Prize at the 1959 Cannes Film Festival), Fever Mounts at El Pao (1959); The Young One (1960), (which won a Special Mention at the 1960 Cannes Film Festival); The Exterminating Angel (1962), ("The Exterminating Angel"); and Simon of the Desert (1965) ("Simon of the Desert"). Of the Golden Age output, "New York Times" movie critic A.O. Scott said, "There is a frankness in these films that would never have passed muster with the Hays Office." The Golden Age had peaked in the 1940s, bolstered by the economic boom caused by the World War II alliance with the US, government support for the industry via state-funded studios, the maturation of a star system, and the rationalization of distribution and exhibition. Aside from Bunuel's pictures, the post-Golden Age era saw indigenous cinema suffer through the 1960s, as the industry became more dependent on formulaic pictures and such popular genres as the "Santo the Wrestler" series. During the 1960s and 1970s many low-grade horror and action movies were produced with professional wrestler Santo and Hugo Stiglitz being the biggest stars. However, the moribund 1960s led to a revival of government support for the industry in the 1970s, which established the base for a revival of Mexican art cinema in the 1980s and 1990s. El Indio continued directing films until 1979, but when his collaboration with Figueroa ended in 1958, his reputation suffered as the artistry of his pictures declined. He began acting more, though he directed a picture every few years. Gradually, the notoriety of his life began overtaking his reputation as a filmmaker. El Indio lived out the fantasy of perhaps every director when he shot a critic, who had dissed one of his movies, in the testicles. A violent man, he shot and killed a farm laborer, which he claimed was in self-defense. Convicted of manslaughter in 1976, he served six months of a 4-1/2-year sentence. By the 1960s Fernandez's off-screen reputation as a violent man led to his typecasting as brutal villains in many Mexican and American films. As an actor, Fernandez appeared with his brother, singer/actor Fernando Fernández, in John Ford's The Fugitive (1947), on which he also served as associate producer. Other American films he appeared in were John Huston's The Unforgiven (1960) (on which he also served as second unit director) and The Night of the Iguana (1964), the John Wayne pictures The War Wagon (1967) and Chisum (1970) (on which he also served as second unit director), Sidney J. Furie's The Appaloosa (1966) in support of Marlon Brando, and Burt Kennedy's Return of the Seven (1966). After assaying the role of renegade Mexican Gen. Mapache in the classic "The Wild Bunch", Fernandez appeared in two other Peckinpah films, as Paco in Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid (1973) and as El Jefe, who gives the order to Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974). He was reunited with John Huston in Under the Volcano (1984) and appeared in Roman Polanski's Pirates (1986).
El Indio's last two films as a writer-director were México Norte (1979) and Erótica (1979), in which he also starred. In all, El Indio directed 43 pictures from 1942-79. He was the credited screenwriter on 40 pictures, starting with Beautiful Sky (1936) in 1936. He also served as second-unit director, both credited and uncredited, on such American pictures shot in Mexico as The Magnificent Seven (1960), in which he was attached to the American crew by the Mexican government to ensure that the depictions of Mexicans were not racist or demeaning. Fernandez died in Mexico City on 8/6/86.
Government sponsorship of the industry and the creation of state-supported film helped create the phenomenon known as the "Nuevo Cine Mexicano" ("New Mexican Cinema") that catapulted Mexican movies into prominence on the global market in the 1990s. Amores Perros (2000), And Your Mother Too (2001) and The Crime of Padre Amaro (2002) are just three of the most recent Mexican films that have featured prominently in American art cinemas. The spirit of El Indio lives on!
In 2002 "La Perla" was named to the National Film Preservation Board's National Film Registry, which is maintained by the US Library of Congress. Fernandez and his collaborator Gabriel Figueroa were honored on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of El Indio's birth at the inaugural Puerto Vallarta Film Festival of the Americas held in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, in November 2004.- Actor
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Tom Payne was born on 4 October 1914 in Lomas de Zamora, Argentina. He was an actor and director, known for Sinhá Moça (1953), Ângela (1951) and Sai da Frente (1952). He was married to Eliane Lage. He died on 15 September 1996 in Alfenas, Minas Gerais, Brazil.- Writer
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Alberto Gout was born on 14 March 1907 in Mexico, Distrito Federal, Mexico. He was a writer and director, known for Adam and Eve (1956), La sospechosa (1955) and The Rape of the Sabines (1962). He died on 7 July 1966 in Mexico, Distrito Federal, Mexico.- Manolo Alonso is known for Siete muertes a plazo fijo (1950) and Casta de roble (1954).
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Lima Barreto was born on 23 June 1906 in Casa Branca, São Paulo, Brazil. He was a writer and director, known for The Bandit (1953), A Primeira Missa (1961) and Quelé do Pajeú (1970). He was married to Arassary de Oliveira. He died on 23 November 1982 in Campinas, São Paulo, Brazil.- Actor
- Writer
- Director
Duarte left his hometown, at 14, and moved to São Paulo where he started working as a typist in an accounting office. In the early 1940s, after graduating in Economics, he went to Rio de Janeiro, where he had a bit-part on It's All True (1943). He then made some appearances in radio soap operas and worked as a writer and reporter for the 'Observatório Econômico e Financeiro' newspaper.
His big break debut as a leading actor came with Italian director Alberto Pieralisi's film Querida Susana (1947). The following year, Duarte was hired by 'Atlântida Empresa Cinematográfica do Brasil', performing in Terra Violenta (1949) and becoming one of the biggest heartthrobs on Brazilian movie screens. In 1951, he switches to 'Companhia Cinematográfica Vera Cruz', another important Brazilian film studio of the time, commanding the highest salary of its contract players.
in 1957, he returned to São Paulo and began his career as a director, with the short documentary 'Fazendo Cinema' followed by a feature film. He left for Europe during a few years, where he appeared in several productions in Portugal, France, and Spain.
Back in Brazil in 1961, he decided to buy the rights to the play 'O Pagador de Promessas', by playwright Dias Gomes, and adapted it to the screen, with the co-production of Oswaldo Massaini. In 1962, the film was selected to represent Brazil at the XV International Film Festival in Cannes, where it won the 'Palme d'Or'. In the same year, it is awarded in more than ten festivals in Brazil and abroad.
His participation in Independência ou Morte (1972) influenced him to become a Freemason. In 1979, he made his only telenovela appearance, guest starring in Feijão Maravilha (1979).
In 2008, at 88, Duarte founded the 'Instituto Anselmo Duarte', a cultural organization dedicated to restoring selected Brazilian films and creating special educational projects aimed at young filmmakers to improve their technical filmmaking skills. After his death, his son, became the institute's president.- Director
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- Producer
Nelson Pereira dos Santos was born on 22 October 1928 in São Paulo, Brazil. He was a director and writer, known for Memórias do Cárcere (1984), O Amuleto de Ogum (1974) and Tenda dos Milagres (1977). He was married to Ivelise Ferreira. He died on 21 April 2018 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.- Director
- Writer
- Actor
Paulo César Saraceni was born on 5 November 1933 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He was a director and writer, known for The Murdered House (1971), O Viajante (1998) and Capitu (1968). He was married to Ana Maria Nascimento e Silva. He died on 14 April 2012 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.- Director
- Writer
- Producer
Walter Hugo Khouri was born on 21 October 1929 in São Paulo, Brazil. He was a director and writer, known for O Último Êxtase (1973), O Anjo da Noite (1974) and Iguassu: The Devil's Throat (1960). He died on 27 June 2003 in Sao Paulo, Brazil.- Writer
- Director
- Producer
Roberto Santos was born in a working-class suburb of São Paulo in 1928. Started his cinema activities around 1952, in the first big studio built in Brazil, the Vera Cruz Studio. In 1956 makes his first movie, "O Grande Momento" ("The Great Momment"), the first neo- realistic movie made in Brazil. In 1965 Roberto Santos adapts a short novel by Guimarães Rosa, "A Hora e Vez de Augusto Matraga" ("Matraga"), the only successful adaptation to cinema of a work by Guimarães Rosa, the most important name in Brazilian literature in the 20th century. The movie goes to the Cannes Festival and it is well received. During the late 60s and 70s his career is marked by problems with the censorship. Nevertheless, he directs more 6 movies, among them the two experimental movies "Vozes do Medo" ("Voices of Fear") -- a movie with the structure of a magazine -- and "As Três Mortes de Solano" ("The Three Deaths of Solano"), an experiment where the same plot is told three times, first in the fantastic realm, then as a realistic plot, and finally as a circus pantomime. Meanwhile he works in TV and directing commercials. The success of an adaptation for TV of another Guimarães Rosa's story prompts him to write a screenplay for the marvelous short novel "Campo Geral", about a kid growing in the back-country of Brazil. After months of trouble to obtain the rights, the project is abandoned, and he decides to tackle another myth of Brazilian literature, 'Machado de Assis'. His last movie, "Quincas Borba", recreates Machado de Assis's fin-de-siècle universe in the troubled 80s. Roberto Santos died of a heart attack at the São Paulo airport, just after returning from the Festival of Gramado, where "Quincas Borba" was shown and heavily criticized by a click of critics.- Director
- Writer
- Producer
Octavio Cortázar was born on 19 January 1935 in Havana, Cuba. He was a director and writer, known for The Teacher (1978), Guardafronteras (1981) and For the First Time (1967). He died on 27 February 2008 in Madrid, Spain.- Cinematographer
- Director
- Writer
Ozualdo Ribeiro Candeias was born on 5 November 1922 in Cajubi, São Paulo, Brazil. He was a cinematographer and director, known for A Herança (1970), O Vigilante (1992) and A Opção (1981). He died on 8 February 2007 in São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil.- Director
- Writer
- Producer
One of the great filmmakers of revolutionary Cuba, Humberto Solás entered the film industry as a teenager, and made his first short at 18. After taking a film course at Centro Sperimentale de Cinema in Rome, he made a big impression with his 1966 medium-length fiction "Manuela", the first of many films dedicated to the Cuban woman. In 1968 his masterpiece "Lucía" won many prizes and brought him international recognition. But the so-called "parametrización" (discredit or persecution of homosexuals and other "anti-socials") during the early 70's, prevented him from making more personal films. In the 80s he had a big success with "Cecilia", followed by a big controversy due to his free adaptation (along with this longtime friend and collaborator, editor Nelson Rodríguez, and Norma Torrado, editor of documentalist Santiago Alvarez' classics "LBJ" and "Now") of "Cecilia Valdés o La loma del ángel", considered the "national novel" in Cuba. After this scandal, he proved he could make a film on time and under budget with "Amada" (co-directed with Rodríguez) and had another big hit with "Un hombre de éxito", which won first prize in the Havana and Cartagena film festivals. In 1992 he realized an old dream, when he filmed Alejo Carpentier's epic novel "El siglo de las luces" for French television.- Director
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- Producer
Joaquim Pedro de Andrade was born on 25 May 1932 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He was a director and writer, known for Macunaima (1969), Guerra Conjugal (1974) and The Brazilwood Man (1982). He was married to Cristina Aché, Sarah de Castro Barbosa and Ana Maria Galano. He died on 10 September 1988 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.- Director
- Writer
- Producer
Santiago Álvarez was born on 18 March 1919 in Cuba. He was a director and writer, known for 79 primaveras (1969), Hanoi, martes 13 (1968) and El sueño del pongo (1970). He died on 20 May 1998 in Havana, Cuba.- Director
- Producer
- Writer
Andrea Tonacci was born in 1944 in Rome, Lazio, Italy. He was a director and producer, known for Blablablá (1968), Serras da desordem (2006) and Bang Bang (1971). He died on 16 December 2016 in Sao Paulo, Brazil.- Director
- Writer
- Producer
Perry Henzell was born on 7 March 1936 in Port Maria, St. Mary, Jamaica. He was a director and writer, known for The Harder They Come (1972), No Place Like Home (2006) and Camera Three (1955). He was married to Sally Densham. He died on 30 November 2006 in Treasure Beach, Saint Elizabeth, Jamaica.- Director
- Writer
- Editor
Raymundo Gleyzer's parents were Jews who were involved with theater, but after they separated the boy got work as a cameraman to support himself and his mother, who he stayed with.Which led to a short involvement at the La Plata film school.Gleyzer soon realized he wanted to get right out into the real world and document the situations of the peasants in his country and the failure so far of revolutionary movements like those in Mexico to help such people.His later involvement with radical political activism led to his disappearance in the 1970s with likely participation from the US Central Intelligence Agency.- Director
- Writer
- Editor
Patricio Guzmán was born on 11 August 1941 in Santiago, Chile. He is a director and writer, known for Nostalgia for the Light (2010), The Battle of Chile: Part I (1975) and The Southern Cross (1991).- Writer
- Director
- Producer
Arnaldo Jabor was born on 12 December 1940 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He was a writer and director, known for All Nudity Shall Be Punished (1973), Tudo Bem (1978) and I Love You (1981). He was married to Suzana Villas Boas. He died on 15 February 2022 in Sao Paulo, Brazil.- Director
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- Producer
Sergio Giral is an American citizen born in Havana, Cuba out of a Cuban father and American mother. He was raised in New York until returned to Cuba at the times of the Revolution in 1960. He began working for The Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry, in 1961. He went on to make a number of short films,documentaries and features. With more than 30 years of experience as a film director and scriptwriter, Giral has dedicated most of his films to acknowledge Afro-Cuban and Caribbean history and culture. His famous trilogy depicting historical considerations on 19th century slavery in Cuba and the Caribbean have achieved numerous awards and recognitions around the world. Sergio Giral return to United States in 1991.- Director
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- Producer
Helvio Soto was born on 21 February 1930 in Santiago, Chile. He was a director and writer, known for Erase un niño, un guerrillero, un caballo... (1967), El ABC del amor (1967) and Mundo mágico (1967). He died on 29 November 2001 in Santiago, Chile.- Cinematographer
- Director
- Writer
Jorge Bodanzky was born in 1942 in São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil. He is a cinematographer and director, known for Iracema - Uma Transa Amazônica (1975), Jakobine (1978) and O Terceiro Milênio (1982).- Writer
- Director
- Producer
Orlando Senna was born in 1940 in Afrânio Peixoto, Bahia, Brazil. He is a writer and director, known for Iracema - Uma Transa Amazônica (1975), Diamante bruto (1978) and Longe do Paraíso (2020). He is married to Conceição Senna.- Director
- Writer
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Sara Gómez was born in 1943 in Cuba. She was a director and writer, known for One Way or Another (1977), En la otra isla (1968) and Iré a Santiago (1964). She was married to Germinal Hernández and Héctor Veitia. She died in 1974.- Producer
- Director
- Writer
Carlos Diegues was born on 19 May 1940 in Maceió, Alagoas, Brazil. He is a producer and director, known for Xica (1976), O Maior Amor do Mundo (2006) and Better Days Ahead (1989). He has been married to Renata Maria de Almeida Magalhães since 1982. They have one child. He was previously married to Nara Leão.- Director
- Writer
- Producer
Hector Babenco was born on 7 February 1946 in Mar del Plata, Buenos Aires, Argentina. He was a director and writer, known for Carandiru (2003), Pixote (1980) and Foolish Heart (1998). He was married to Bárbara Paz, Xuxa Lopes and Raquel Arnaud. He died on 13 July 2016 in São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil.- Director
- Writer
- Producer
One of the most important Brazilian directors of all time, Leon Hirszman is best remembered for the realistic manner of dealing with social and political themes in his works, from documentaries to feature films. His career started with a segment filmed for Cinco vezes Favela (1962) and The Deceased (1965) marked as his first feature film, an adaptation of Nelson Rodrigues classic play, and also marked as José Wilker's acting film debut. _São Bernardo (1972) was a major turning point in his career, a film lauded by audiences and critics, winning multiple awards and Hirszman name became well-known in film circles.
With They Don't Wear Black Tie (1981), by following the current wave in politics and social economical issues such as the strikes for better working conditions in automobile plants which happened in the late 1970's during the military regime, intertwining its story with a family's division, Hirszman conquered audiences and the critics again with his memorable sequences and a power driven story. The film won three awards at the Venice Film Festival and was nominated for the Golden Lion as well. This adaptation of Gianfrancesco Guarnieri celebrated play - who also acted in the leading role - was a massive hit. Around the making of this film, Hirszman was filming the real events that also inspired this film in ABC da Greve (1990), which was released a few years after his death.
During the last year of his life, he managed to release three different projects: his final feature films A Barca do Sol (1987), and Em Busca do Espaço Cotidiano (1987) and the short documentary Imagens do Inconsciente (1987). He died on September 15, 1987 due to complication of AIDS, having been diagnosed in 1986 due to a blood transfusion. Along with ABC da Greve (1990), the documentary Bahia de Todos os Sambas (1996) was released posthumously.- Director
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- Editor
Paul Leduc was born on 11 March 1942 in Mexico City, Distrito Federal, Mexico. He was a director and writer, known for Frida (1983), Cobrador: In God We Trust (2006) and Reed: Insurgent Mexico (1972). He was married to Bertha Navarro. He died on 21 October 2020 in Mexico.- Director
- Writer
- Editor
Son of an Austrian father and a Colombian mother, Francisco Norden was born in Belgium. He studied architecture at the National University in Bogotá. He finished architecture in Paris at L'Ecole National des Beaux Arts, and then in London at the Polytechnic School of Architecture. In 1955 he returned to Colombia and dedicated himself to reviewing film and theater in newspapers and magazines. In 1958 he began studies at the Institute of Advanced Cinematographic Studies in Paris (IDHEC), and upon returning to Colombia, in late 1960, he began making institutional short films. Over the next 20 years, he gradually had the opportunity to make full length documentaries and began winning awards in the mid-70's. In 1984 Norden released "Condores No Entierran Todos Los Dias" (A Man of Principle), a feature film based on the novel of the same name written by Gustavo Alvarez Gardeazábal. This film focused on violence in Colombia in the 40s and 50s, and won awards at various film festivals. Norden continued making films in the 80s and 90s.- Director
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- Actor
Eduardo Coutinho was born on 11 May 1933 in São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil. He was a director and writer, known for Edifício Master (2002), Santo Forte (1999) and Babilônia 2000 (1999). He was married to Maria das Dores de Oliveira. He died on 2 February 2014 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.- Writer
- Director
- Producer
Pim de la Parra was born on 4 January 1940 in Paramaribo, Dutch Guiana [now Suriname]. He is a writer and director, known for Paul Chevrolet en de ultieme hallucinatie (1985), Lost in Amsterdam (1989) and Obsessions (1969).- Director
- Writer
- Animation Department
Juan Padrón was born on 29 January 1947 in Havana, Cuba. He was a director and writer, known for Más ¡vampiros en La Habana! (2003), Quinoscopio 1 (1986) and Elpidio Valdés contra dólar y cañón (1983). He died on 24 March 2020 in Havana, Cuba.- Writer
- Script and Continuity Department
- Producer
Martin Donovan was born on 21 January 1950 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He is a writer and producer, known for Apartment Zero (1988), Death Becomes Her (1992) and The Legs of Infamy.- Writer
- Director
- Producer
Euzhan Palcy was born in Saint-Joseph, Martinique, France. Euzhan is a writer and director, known for Siméon (1992), Sugar Cane Alley (1983) and A Dry White Season (1989).- Director
- Producer
- Writer
Luis Mandoki was born on 17 August 1954 in Mexico City, Distrito Federal, Mexico. He is a director and producer, known for Innocent Voices (2004), Angel Eyes (2001) and Trapped (2002).- Director
- Writer
- Producer
Leon Ichaso was born on 3 August 1948 in Havana, Cuba. He was a director and writer, known for El Super (1979), Piñero (2001) and Bitter Sugar (1996). He was married to Karen Willinger and Amanda Barber . He died on 21 May 2023 in Santa Monica, California, USA.- Director
- Actor
- Writer
Arturo Ripstein began his career as assistant director (unbilled) of Luis Buñuel in Ángel exterminador, El (1962). His father, Alfredo Ripstein, Jr. produced his first film, a western written by Gabriel García Márquez titled Tiempo de morir (1965). Ripstein filmography is very praised in Mexico and Europe. He is considered the best Mexican director alive. Many of his films are related with an unique subject: the loneliness of souls. So, his style re flects his main concerns. Ripstein's films are somber, slow and depressive.- Writer
- Director
- Editor
Luis Estrada was born on January 17, 1962 in Mexico City, Distrito Federal, Mexico. He is a writer and director, known for his films that openly criticize the Mexican political system and the controversial issues that revolve around it, like El Infierno (2010), La Ley de Herodes (1999) and La Dictadura Perfecta (2014).- Director
- Producer
- Additional Crew
Miguel Arteta was born in 1965 in San Juan, Puerto Rico. He is a director and producer, known for Beatriz at Dinner (2017), Succession (2018) and Enlightened (2011). He is married to Justine Arteta.- Director
- Writer
- Producer
With only three feature films, Carlos Carrera is considered one of the best young directors of the new Mexican cinema. He began as an animator at 12 years old and wrote, produced and directed a number of animated-shorts before filming his first live-action movie, a docummentary short titled Vestidito Blanco como la Leche Nido, Un (1989). He studied filmmaking at the Training Center of Cinematography (Centro de Capacitación Cinematográfica) in Mexico City. After that, Carrera made his first feature, Mujer de Benjamín, La (1991). This film won the Mexican Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay and many prizes in film festivals. After his second feature film, Vida conyugal, La (1993), Carrera made Héroe, El (1994), an animated short winner of the Golden Palm at Cannes Festival.- Director
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Francisco Vargas is known for The Violin (2005), Tierra caliente... Se mueren los que la mueven (2004) and Casa Caracol (2017).- Producer
- Director
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He is best known for directing the Brazilian critical and financial successes Elite Squad and Elite Squad: The Enemy Within and the 2014 remake of RoboCop. He has won the Golden Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival for Elite Squad in 2008. He is also the producer and director of the Netflix original series Narcos, starring frequent collaborator Wagner Moura.- Director
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- Producer
Known as one of Colombia's most prominent and original auteurs, Greek-Colombian film director and screenwriter Spiros Stathoulopoulos gained international recognition with his debut PVC-1 (2007). The uncut cult film, premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in the Quinzaine des Réalisateurs and depicts the true story of a rural Colombian mother who was turned into a time bomb. Metéora (2012), his second film, competed for the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival. Set in the UNESCO World Heritage medieval monasteries, it deals with a forbidden love story between a young Greek Orthodox monk and an older Russian Orthodox nun. Killing Klaus Kinski (2016), his section from the omnibus film Amazonas (2016), was selected at Clermont-Ferrand and recreates the film set from Fitzcarraldo (1982) to confront the egos of Werner Herzog and Klaus Kinski. Between his films, Stathoulopoulos creates academical experimental films. He is an honor graduate from the California State University in Cinema Arts. The United States government granted him an Extraordinary Ability Green Card for outstanding artistic achievement and sustained acclaim.- Cinematographer
- Camera and Electrical Department
- Director
Esteban Sapir was born on 6 June 1967 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He is a cinematographer and director, known for The Aerial (2007), Picado fino (1996) and Life According to Muriel (1997).- Writer
- Director
- Producer
The son of a Chilean woman of Swiss-French origins and an Italian father, he grew up in Sao Paolo and Buenos Aires. At the age of twenty he was expelled from Argentina for political reasons: he landed in Milan and there he lived throughout the 1980s, while also spending lots of time in New York, Los Angeles and Paris. He has been a school teacher in Buenos Aires, a Polaroid photographer and a video-artist in New York. He got to directing after going to the Albedo film school in Milano in 1981. His first movie, Barbed Wire (1991), was screened in festivals in Locarno, Madrid and Brussels. Bechis went on to direct Garage Olimpo (1999), a film that has been screened in a wide range of international festivals including Cannes.A Chilean-Italian director.- Producer
- Writer
- Director
Rodrigo García was born on 24 August 1959 in Bogotá, Colombia. He is a producer and writer, known for Nine Lives (2005), Mother and Child (2009) and In Treatment (2008).A Colombian who grew up and started his career in Mexico.- Director
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- Producer
Claudia Llosa was born on 15 November 1976 in Lima, Peru. She is a director and writer, known for The Milk of Sorrow (2009), Madeinusa (2006) and Loxoro (2012).- Writer
- Director
- Producer
Santiago Mitre was born on 4 December 1980 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He is a writer and director, known for Argentina, 1985 (2022), Paulina (2015) and The Student (2011).- Director
- Writer
- Editor
Pablo Giorgelli was born in 1967 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He is a director and writer, known for Las Acacias (2011), Invisible (2017) and La Encomienda (2021).- Writer
- Director
- Producer
Gustavo Taretto was born in 1965 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He is a writer and director, known for Sidewalls (2011), Side Walls (2005) and Hoy no estoy (2007).- Producer
- Director
- Writer
Carlos Reygadas was born on 10 October 1971 in Mexico City, Distrito Federal, Mexico. He is a producer and director, known for Silent Light (2007), Japan (2002) and Post Tenebras Lux (2012). He is married to Natalia López.- Producer
- Writer
- Director
Michel Franco was born on 28 August 1979 in Mexico City, Distrito Federal, Mexico. He is a producer and writer, known for New Order (2020), Chronic (2015) and After Lucia (2012).- Director
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- Producer
Born in 1974, Sebastián Lelio is one of the leading figures (along with Pablo Larraín, Andrés Wood and a few others) of the post-dictatorship Chilean cinema. After graduating from the "Escuela de Cine de Chile" in Santiago, Lelio started by making shorts (he made five from 1995 to 2003, as well as a documentary). From 2005 on, he directed four remarkable feature films, the first three very dark, the fourth one somewhat lighter, which all garnered awards in the festival circuit. The Sacred Family (2005) is kind of Chilean version of Pier Paolo Pasolini's Teorema (1968). It was followed by Navidad (2009), a drama of uncommon intensity focusing on three teenagers alienated from their families and The Year of the Tiger (2011), recounting the escape of an inmate during Chile's 2010 earthquake. Coming after this taught triptych, Gloria (2013) surprises by its peaceful tone. The amorous adventures of Gloria, a sixty-year-old office worker in Santiago, although not without tensions and bitterness, are less upsetting than what Lelio had filmed before. But whether dark or rosy, Lelio's cinema explores the Chilean society of today with the same acuteness.- Producer
- Director
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Pablo Trapero was born in San justo, Argentina in 1971. In 1999 he directed his first feature, Mundo Grua, which won the Critics Prize at Venice. In 2002, he opened his production company, Matanza Cine, that produces films for fellow filmmakers, as well as his own. His second feature, El Bonaerense (2002) premiered at Cannes, Familia Rodante (2004) at Venice, and Nacido y Criado (2006) at Toronto. In 2008, Leonera, presented in Competition at Cannes, revealed the talent of Martina Gusman, muse, actress and producer of the cineaste. He returned to Cannes with Carancho (2010) and Elefante Blanco (2012), both in Un Certain Regard. His films have covered the most important festivals, receiving critical acclaim and awards He has sat on the main Festival juries at Venice, San Sebastian and Locarno, among others. In 2014 he served as President of Un Certain Regard in Cannes. In 2015 the Ministry of Culture of France awarded him Chevallier l Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, becoming the first south american director in receiving this honor. With his latest film, The Clan, he won the Silver Lion for Best Director in Venice International Film Festival Trapero is one of the biggest creative forces in Latin American Cinema.- Director
- Writer
- Producer
Pablo Agüero was born in 1977 in Argentina. He is a director and writer, known for Eva Doesn't Sleep (2015), Primera nieve (2006) and 77 Doronship (2009).- Writer
- Editor
- Script and Continuity Department
Ana Luiza Machado da Silva Muylaert (born 21 April 1964), known professionally as Anna Muylaert, is a Brazilian film and television director, producer and screenwriter. Anna studied filmmaking at the School of Communications and Arts at University of São Paulo (USP) from 1980 to 1984. She became a film critic for IstoÉ and O Estado de S. Paulo and in 1988 she joined the staff of Rede Gazeta's program TV Mix. In 1999, she worked as an editor and reporter on TV Cultura's Matéria-Prima. She also wrote scripts for the Cultura programs Mundo da Lua (1991-92) and Castelo Rá-Tim-Bum (1994-97).- Writer
- Director
- Producer
Sebastián Borensztein was born on 22 April 1963 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He is a writer and director, known for Chinese Take-Away (2011), Heroic Losers (2019) and Collateral Man (1997).- Writer
- Producer
- Director
Fede Alvarez was born on 9 February 1978 in Montevideo, Uruguay. He is a writer and producer, known for Don't Breathe (2016), Evil Dead (2013) and The Girl in the Spider's Web (2018).- Producer
- Director
- Writer
Andy Muschietti was born on 26 August 1973 in Buenos Aires, Federal District, Argentina. He is a producer and director, known for Mama (2013), It (2017) and It Chapter Two (2019).- Director
- Writer
- Producer
Ciro Guerra was born on 6 February 1981 in Río de Oro, Cesar, Colombia. He is a director and writer, known for Embrace of the Serpent (2015), Birds of Passage (2018) and Los viajes del viento (2009). He is married to Cristina Gallego.- Producer
- Director
- Writer
Cristina Gallego is known for Embrace of the Serpent (2015), Birds of Passage (2018) and Memoria (2021). She is married to Ciro Guerra.- Writer
- Director
- Producer
Gastón Duprat is a director, screenwriter and film producer. He started his career in video art, experimental cinema and television. He has made a dozen films, with which he obtained more than thirty international awards, among which stand out The Man Next Door (2009), The Distinguished Citizen (2016), My Masterpiece (2018) and Official Competition (2020).- Producer
- Director
- Writer
Fernanda Valadez was born on 22 August 1981 in Guanajuato, Guanajuato, Mexico. She is a producer and director, known for Identifying Features (2020), Sujo (2024) and 400 Maletas (2014).- Director
- Writer
- Producer
Ariel Winograd was born on 23 August 1977 in Buenos Aires City, Buenos Aires, Argentina. He is a director and writer, known for The Heist of the Century (2020), ¿Y cómo es él? (2020) and Inside Man (2006).- Director
- Producer
- Writer
Rodrigo Sepúlveda is known for Aurora (2014), My Tender Matador (2020) and Así es esta historia (1998).- Director
- Writer
- Producer
Duncan Jones was born on 30 May 1971 in Bromley, Kent, England, UK. He is a director and writer, known for Moon (2009), Source Code (2011) and Mute (2018). He has been married to Rodene Ronquillo since 6 November 2012. They have two children.- Producer
- Director
- Writer
Michaël R. Roskam was born on 9 October 1972 in Sint-Truiden, Flanders, Belgium. He is a producer and director, known for The Drop (2014), Bullhead (2011) and Racer and the Jailbird (2017). He has been married to Eline De Munck since 9 January 2021.- Actor
- Director
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Scott Cooper was born on 20 April 1970 in Abingdon, Virginia, USA. He is an actor and director, known for Crazy Heart (2009), Hostiles (2017) and Out of the Furnace (2013).- Writer
- Producer
- Director
Alex Garland is an English novelist, screenwriter, film producer and director. He is best known for the films Ex Machina (2015) and Annihilation (2018).
Garland's others works as a writer includes The Beach (2000), 28 Days Later (2002), Sunshine (2007), Never Let Me Go (2011) and Dredd (2012).
He is also the co-writer on the video game Enslaved: Odyssey to the West.
In 2015, Garland made his directorial debut with Ex Machina and was nominated for an Oscar in the Best Writing, Original Screenplay category.- Producer
- Writer
- Director
John Wells is one of the most prolific writers, directors and producers for television, film and the stage. Over the past two decades, Wells has been a creative force behind some of primetime's biggest hit series, including ER, The West Wing, Third Watch and China Beach. He is currently Executive Producer of the hit NBC crime drama Southland.
Shows produced by John Wells have received an astounding 267 Emmy nominations with 55 Emmy wins, not to mention 5 Peabody Awards, and numerous People's Choice Awards, Producers Guild Awards, a HUMANITAS Prize (nominated 7 times), as well as numerous distinctions from health care organizations across the country for ER. During its fifteen year run, ER earned 122 Emmy nominations, the most in television history.
A seven-time Writers Guild Award nominee, in 2007, Wells received the WGA's prestigious Paddy Chayefsky Television Laurel Award, given to writers who have advanced the literature of television and made outstanding contributions to the profession of television writers. In 2005, Wells was awarded the David Susskind Achievement Award in Television from the Producers Guild of America.
Wells and his team at John Wells Productions have a number of high-profile films in various stages of production and development.
Wells recently wrote and directed The Company Men, a drama set against the backdrop of affluent Boston suburbs that vividly portrays the struggles of families coping with the current ongoing economic meltdown. The film marks Wells' feature film directorial debut with an extraordinary ensemble cast including Academy Award® winners Ben Affleck, Kevin Costner, Tommy Lee Jones and Chris Cooper, as well as Emmy® winner Craig T. Nelson and Golden Globe nominee Maria Bello.
As a producer, Wells' most recent motion-picture credits include: Carroll Ballard's critically-acclaimed drama Duma, a children's film starring Hope Davis and Campbell Scott; Peter Kosminsky's adaptation of Janet Fitch's critically acclaimed novel White Oleander, starring Alison Lohman, Robin Wright Penn, Michelle Pfeiffer and Renée Zellweger; and Neil Jordan's The Good Thief, starring Nick Nolte. Wells also served as a producer on Andrzej Bartkowiak's Doom, based upon the popular video game and starring Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson.
In an arrangement unique to the business, John Wells Productions also funds Killer Films, the independent operation of Christine Vachon, Pam Koffler and Katie Roumel. For Killer Films, Wells executive produced Todd Haynes' innovative Bob Dylan biopic I'm Not There, Tom Kalin's Savage Grace, Douglas McGrath's Infamous, Mary Harron's The Notorious Bettie Page and Phyllis Nagy's Mrs. Harris for HBO, which garnered several Emmy nominations. Also in collaboration with Killer Films was Todd Haynes' Far From Heaven, Mark Romanek's One Hour Photo, Todd Graff's Camp, Fenton Bailey's Party Monster, Robert Altman's The Company, Michael Mayer's A Home at the End of the World and John Waters' A Dirty Shame.
As a TV producer, Wells' diverse projects include series Smith, The Evidence and Jonny Zero, as well as telemovies Dark Shadows (2004) and The Big Time (2002). Wells' award-winning stage productions include Judgement, Balm in Gilead, Battery and She Also Dances.
Wells served as President of the Writers Guild of America, West (1999-2001) and was vital to the success of the 2001 MBA contract negotiations.
Born in Alexandria, Virginia, and raised in Denver, Colorado, Wells graduated from Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, with a bachelor of fine arts and later earned a Masters degree in film and television at the University of Southern California, where he also serves on the school's Television Executive Advisory Council.- Director
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Tom Ford is an American fashion designer, film director, screenwriter and film producer. He gained fame as the creative director at Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent. In 2006, Ford launched his own "Tom Ford" label.
Ford directed the films A Single Man (2009) and Nocturnal Animals (2016), both films were Oscar-nominated.
His directorial debut A Single Man is based on the novel of the same name by Christopher Isherwood. The film starred Colin Firth who was nominated for an Academy Award.
In 2016 he directed Nocturnal Animals, an adaptation of the Austin Wright novel Tony and Susan. The film starred Jake Gyllenhaal, Amy Adams, Michael Shannon, Armie Hammer, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, and Laura Linney.- Writer
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Taylor Sheridan is an American actor, screenwriter and director. He is best known for writing the screenplay for 'Sicario' (2015) and 'Hell or high water' (2016), for which he received an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay.
He also starred in the FX television series 'Sons of anarchy' and directed the film 'Wind river,' starring Jeremy Renner and Elizabeth Olsen.- Writer
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Stephen Chbosky was born on 25 January 1970 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA. He is a writer and producer, known for The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012), Wonder (2017) and Rent (2005). He has been married to Liz Maccie since 18 September 2010. They have two children.- Editorial Department
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Darius Marder is known for Sound of Metal (2019), The Place Beyond the Pines (2012) and Loot (2008). He is married to Liza Cassidy. They have two children.- Director
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Ruben Östlund was born on 13 April 1974 in Styrsö, Västra Götalands län, Sweden. He is a director and editor, known for Triangle of Sadness (2022), Force Majeure (2014) and The Square (2017). He was previously married to Andrea Östlund.- Director
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After school, Amelio studied philosophy. He graduated with a doctorate. Amelio developed a keen interest in film at a young age. In 1970 he began working as a cameraman for the Italian state television RAI. A little later, Amelio worked as an assistant director for RAI. In 1970 he directed his first television film: "La fine del gioco". He then also took part in the production of several TV commercials, for example for the state-owned airline Alitalia. In the 1970s, Amelio first attracted attention in international cinema with films such as "La città del sole" (1973), "La morte al lavoro" (1978) and "Il piccolo Archimede" (1979).
Amelio celebrated his breakthrough as an internationally recognized film director in 1990 with "Porte aperte". With "Il ladro di bambini" in 1992, Gianni Amelio impressively staged the conflicts of conscience of a carabinieri officer in today's Italian society. In 1994 he came to the public with the film "Lamerica", which dealt with the current refugee problem between Albania and Italy and exposed the unscrupulous dealings with the plight of refugees by the smuggling organizations. The director has been honored with several international awards for his film work.
He received an Oscar nomination in 1991 for "Porte aperte". In 1992, Amelio was awarded the Nastro d'Argento, the Felix Award and the Cannes Grand Prix for "Il ladro di bambini". Another silver ribbon (Nastro d'Argento) at the Venice Film Festival followed in 1994 for "Lamerica". In the same year he received the Grolla d'Oro for his life's work. In 1996 the Spanish Goya Film Prize also followed for "Lamerica". The director also published a book under the same title in 1994 about the film "Lamerica". At the same time, Amelio also worked as a theater director: in 1995 he staged the play "I pagliacci" in Genoa's Carlo Felice Theater. The director's other successful films were "Così ridevano" in 1998 and "Le chiavi di casa" in 2004.
In 2008 he took over the management of the Torino Film Festival from Nanni Moretti.- Producer
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Thomas Jeffrey Hanks was born in Concord, California, to Janet Marylyn (Frager), a hospital worker, and Amos Mefford Hanks, an itinerant cook. His mother's family, originally surnamed "Fraga", was entirely Portuguese, while his father was of mostly English ancestry. Tom grew up in what he has called a "fractured" family. He moved around a great deal after his parents' divorce, living with a succession of step-families. No problems, no alcoholism - just a confused childhood. He has no acting experience in college and credits the fact that he could not get cast in a college play with actually starting his career. He went downtown, and auditioned for a community theater play, was invited by the director of that play to go to Cleveland, and there his acting career started.
Ron Howard was working on Splash (1983), a fantasy-comedy about a mermaid who falls in love with a business executive. Howard considered Hanks for the role of the main character's wisecracking brother, which eventually went to John Candy. Instead, Hanks landed the lead role and the film went on to become a surprise box office success, grossing more than $69 million. After several flops and a moderate success with the comedy Dragnet (1987), Hanks' stature in the film industry rose. The broad success with the fantasy-comedy Big (1988) established him as a major Hollywood talent, both as a box office draw and within the film industry as an actor. For his performance in the film, Hanks earned his first Academy Award nomination as Best Actor.
Hanks climbed back to the top again with his portrayal of a washed-up baseball legend turned manager in A League of Their Own (1992). Hanks has stated that his acting in earlier roles was not great, but that he subsequently improved. In an interview with Vanity Fair, Hanks noted his "modern era of movie making ... because enough self-discovery has gone on ... My work has become less pretentiously fake and over the top". This "modern era" began for Hanks, first with Sleepless in Seattle (1993) and then with Philadelphia (1993). The former was a blockbuster success about a widower who finds true love over the radio airwaves. Richard Schickel of Time magazine called his performance "charming", and most critics agreed that Hanks' portrayal ensured him a place among the premier romantic-comedy stars of his generation.
In Philadelphia, he played a gay lawyer with AIDS who sues his firm for discrimination. Hanks lost 35 pounds and thinned his hair in order to appear sickly for the role. In a review for People, Leah Rozen stated, "Above all, credit for Philadelphia's success belongs to Hanks, who makes sure that he plays a character, not a saint. He is flat-out terrific, giving a deeply felt, carefully nuanced performance that deserves an Oscar." Hanks won the 1993 Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in Philadelphia. During his acceptance speech, he revealed that his high school drama teacher Rawley Farnsworth and former classmate John Gilkerson, two people with whom he was close, were gay.
Hanks followed Philadelphia with the blockbuster Forrest Gump (1994) which grossed a worldwide total of over $600 million at the box office. Hanks remarked: "When I read the script for Gump, I saw it as one of those kind of grand, hopeful movies that the audience can go to and feel ... some hope for their lot and their position in life ... I got that from the movies a hundred million times when I was a kid. I still do." Hanks won his second Best Actor Academy Award for his role in Forrest Gump, becoming only the second actor to have accomplished the feat of winning consecutive Best Actor Oscars.
Hanks' next role - astronaut and commander Jim Lovell, in the docudrama Apollo 13 (1995) - reunited him with Ron Howard. Critics generally applauded the film and the performances of the entire cast, which included actors Kevin Bacon, Bill Paxton, Gary Sinise, Ed Harris, and Kathleen Quinlan. The movie also earned nine Academy Award nominations, winning two. Later that year, Hanks starred in Disney/Pixar's computer-animated film Toy Story (1995), as the voice of Sheriff Woody. A year later, he made his directing debut with the musical comedy That Thing You Do! (1996) about the rise and fall of a 1960s pop group, also playing the role of a music producer.
As of 2022, Hanks is 66-years-old. He has never retired from acting, and has remained active in the film industry for more than four decades.- Actor
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Gael García Bernal was born in Guadalajara to Patricia Bernal, an actress/model & José Ángel García, an actor/director. His stepfather's cinematographer Sergio Yazbek. He began his acting career as a child, working w/ his parents in a variety of plays. At 14, he starred in a soap opera called El abuelo y yo (1992). He appeared in film school exercises and short films, including De tripas, corazón (1996), which was directed by Antonio Urrutia & nominated for an Academy Award for Best Short Film. He also starred in El ojo en la nuca (2001), a short film directed by Rodrigo Plá. He studied acting at the Central School of Speech & Drama in London. Amores Perros (2000) was his first major feature film, followed by And Your Mother Too (2001), directed by Alfonso Cuarón & filmed by Emmanuel Lubezki.- Actor
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Robin McLaurin Williams was born on Saturday, July 21st, 1951, in Chicago, Illinois, a great-great-grandson of Mississippi Governor and Senator, Anselm J. McLaurin. His mother, Laurie McLaurin (née Janin), was a former model from Mississippi, and his father, Robert Fitzgerald Williams, was a Ford Motor Company executive from Indiana. Williams had English, German, French, Welsh, Irish, and Scottish ancestry.
Robin briefly studied political science at Claremont Men's College and theater at College of Marin before enrolling at The Juilliard School to focus on theater. After leaving Juilliard, he performed in nightclubs where he was discovered for the role of "Mork, from Ork", in an episode of Happy Days (1974). The episode, My Favorite Orkan (1978), led to his famous spin-off weekly TV series, Mork & Mindy (1978). He made his feature starring debut playing the title role in Popeye (1980), directed by Robert Altman.
Williams' continuous comedies and wild comic talents involved a great deal of improvisation, following in the footsteps of his idol Jonathan Winters. Williams also proved to be an effective dramatic actor, receiving Academy Award nominations for Best Actor in a Leading Role in Good Morning, Vietnam (1987), Dead Poets Society (1989), and The Fisher King (1991), before winning the Academy Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role in Good Will Hunting (1997).
During the 1990s, Williams became a beloved hero to children the world over for his roles in a string of hit family-oriented films, including Hook (1991), FernGully: The Last Rainforest (1992), Aladdin (1992), Mrs. Doubtfire (1993), Jumanji (1995), Flubber (1997), and Bicentennial Man (1999). He continued entertaining children and families into the 21st century with his work in Robots (2005), Happy Feet (2006), Night at the Museum (2006), Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian (2009), Happy Feet Two (2011), and Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb (2014). Other more adult-oriented films for which Williams received acclaim include The World According to Garp (1982), Moscow on the Hudson (1984), Awakenings (1990), The Birdcage (1996), Insomnia (2002), One Hour Photo (2002), World's Greatest Dad (2009), and Boulevard (2014).
On Monday, August 11th, 2014, Robin Williams was found dead at his home in Tiburon, California USA, the victim of an apparent suicide, according to the Marin County Sheriff's Office. A 911 call was received at 11:55 a.m. PDT, firefighters and paramedics arrived at his home at 12:00 p.m. PDT, and he was pronounced dead at 12:02 p.m. PDT.- Actor
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Jim Carrey, Canadian-born and a U.S. citizen since 2004, is an actor and producer famous for his rubbery body movements and flexible facial expressions. The two-time Golden Globe-winner rose to fame as a cast member of the Fox sketch comedy In Living Color (1990) but leading roles in Ace Ventura: Pet Detective (1994), Dumb and Dumber (1994) and The Mask (1994) established him as a bankable comedy actor.
James Eugene Carrey was born on January 17, 1962 in Newmarket, Ontario, Canada, and is the youngest of four children of Kathleen (Oram), a homemaker, and Percy Carrey, an accountant and jazz musician. The family surname was originally "Carré", and he has French-Canadian, Scottish, and Irish ancestry. Carrey was an incurable extrovert from day one. As a child, he performed constantly, for anyone who would watch, and even mailed his résumé to The Carol Burnett Show (1967) at age 10. In junior high, he was granted a few precious minutes at the end of each school day to do stand-up routines for his classmates (provided, of course, that he kept a lid on it the rest of the day).
Carrey's early adolescence took a turn for the tragic, however, when the family was forced to relocate from their cozy town of Newmarket to Scarborough (a Toronto suburb). They all took security and janitorial jobs in the Titan Wheels factory, Jim working 8-hour shifts after school let out (not surprisingly, his grades and morale both suffered). When they finally deserted the factory, the family lived out of a Volkswagen camper van until they could return to Toronto.
Carrey made his stand-up debut in Toronto after his parents and siblings got back on their feet. He made his (reportedly awful) professional stand-up debut at Yuk-Yuk's, one of the many local clubs that would serve as his training ground in the years to come. He dropped out of high school, worked on his celebrity impersonations (among them Michael Landon and James Stewart), and in 1979 worked up the nerve to move to Los Angeles. He finessed his way into a regular gig at The Comedy Store, where he impressed Rodney Dangerfield so much that the veteran comic signed him as an opening act for an entire season. During this period Carrey met and married waitress Melissa Womer, with whom he had a daughter (Jane). The couple would later go through a very messy divorce, freeing Carrey up for a brief second marriage to actress Lauren Holly. Wary of falling into the lounge act lifestyle, Carrey began to look around for other performance outlets. He landed a part as a novice cartoonist in the short-lived sitcom The Duck Factory (1984); while the show fell flat, the experience gave Carrey the confidence to pursue acting more vigorously.
Carrey also worked on breaking into film around this time. He scored the male lead in the ill-received Lauren Hutton vehicle Once Bitten (1985), and had a supporting role in Peggy Sue Got Married (1986), before making a modest splash with his appearance as the alien Wiploc in Earth Girls Are Easy (1988). Impressed with Carrey's lunacy, fellow extraterrestrial Damon Wayans made a call to his brother, Keenen Ivory Wayans, who was in the process of putting together the sketch comedy show In Living Color (1990). Carrey joined the cast and quickly made a name for himself with outrageous acts (one of his most popular characters, psychotic Fire Marshall Bill, was attacked by watchdog groups for dispensing ill- advised safety tips).
Following his time on In Living Color (1990), Carrey's transformation from TV goofball to marquee headliner happened within the course of a single year. He opened 1994 with a starring turn in Ace Ventura: Pet Detective (1994), a film that cashed in on his extremely physical brand of humor (the character's trademark was talking out his derrière). Next up was the manic superhero movie The Mask (1994), which had audiences wondering just how far Carrey's features could stretch.
Finally, in December 1994, he hit theaters as a loveable dolt in the Farrelly brothers' Dumb and Dumber (1994) (his first multi-million dollar payday). Now a box-office staple, Carrey brought his manic antics onto the set of Batman Forever (1995), replacing Robin Williams as The Riddler. He also filmed the follow-up to his breakthrough, Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls (1995), and inked a deal with Sony to star in The Cable Guy (1996) (replacing Chris Farley) for a cool $20 million--at the time, that was the biggest up-front sum that had been offered to any comic actor. The movie turned out to be a disappointment, both critically and financially, but Carrey bounced back the next year with the energetic hit Liar Liar (1997). Worried that his comic shtick would soon wear thin, Carrey decided to change course.
In 1998, he traded in the megabucks and silly grins to star in Peter Weir's The Truman Show (1998) playing a naive salesman who discovers that his entire life is the subject of a TV show, Carrey demonstrated an uncharacteristic sincerity that took moviegoers by surprise. He won a Golden Globe for the performance, and fans anticipated an Oscar nomination as well--when it didn't materialize, Carrey lashed out at Academy members for their narrow-minded selection process. Perhaps inspired by the snub, Carrey threw himself into his next role with abandon. After edging out a handful of other hopefuls (including Edward Norton) to play eccentric funnyman Andy Kaufman in Man on the Moon (1999), Carrey disappeared into the role, living as Kaufman -- and his blustery alter-ego Tony Clifton -- for months (Carrey even owned Kaufman's bongo drums, which he'd used during his audition for director Milos Forman). His sometimes uncanny impersonation was rewarded with another Golden Globe, but once again the Academy kept quiet.
An indignant Carrey next reprised his bankable mania for the Farrelly brothers in Me, Myself & Irene (2000), playing a state trooper whose Jekyll and Hyde personalities both fall in love with the same woman (Renée Zellweger). Carrey's real-life persona wound up falling for her too--a few months after the film wrapped, the pair announced they were officially a couple. By then, Carrey had already slipped into a furry green suit to play the stingy antihero of Ron Howard's How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000).
Although Carrey maintains a foothold in the comedy world with films such as Bruce Almighty (2003) and Mr. Popper's Penguins (2011), he is also capable of turning in nuanced dramatic performances, as demonstrated in films like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) and the drama/comedy Yes Man (2008). In 2013, he costars with Steve Carell in The Incredible Burt Wonderstone (2013).
Carrey has one child with his first wife, Melissa Carrey, whom he divorced in 1995. He married actress Lauren Holly in 1996, but they split less than a year later.- Actor
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Multi-talented actor/comedian Katt Williams was born in Cincinnati and raised in Dayton, Ohio. He currently resides in Los Angeles, California, where he is simultaneously working on several projects on camera and behind the scenes for your viewing pleasure in the near future. Throughout his journey he has used his comedy as a tool to travel the country and has accumulated a massive fan base in the process. You may find him coming to your area soon, as he is currently on a multi-city comedy tour, touring with some of the hottest comedians to date.- Writer
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Dave Chappelle's career started while he was in high school at Duke Ellington School of the Arts in Washington, DC where he studied theatre arts. At the age of 14, he began performing stand-up comedy in nightclubs. Shortly after graduation, he moved to New York City where he quickly established himself as a major young talent. At the age of 19, Chappelle made his film debut in Robin Hood: Men in Tights (1993). Chappelle then starred in the short-lived sitcom, Buddies (1996) and had a featured role in The Nutty Professor (1996).- Writer
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Ralphie May was born on 17 February 1972 in Chattanooga, Tennessee, USA. He was a writer and actor, known for For da Love of Money (2002), Cubed (2009) and Whoopi (2003). He was married to Lahna Turner. He died on 6 October 2017 in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA.- Actor
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Adam Richard Sandler was born September 9, 1966 in Brooklyn, New York, to Judith (Levine), a teacher at a nursery school, and Stanley Alan Sandler, an electrical engineer. He is of Russian Jewish descent. At 17, he took his first step towards becoming a stand-up comedian when he spontaneously took the stage at a Boston comedy club. He found he was a natural comic. He nurtured his talent while at New York University (graduating with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1991) by performing regularly in clubs and at universities. During his freshman year, he snagged a recurring role as the Huxtable family's friend Smitty on The Cosby Show (1984). While working at a comedy club in L.A., he was "discovered" by Dennis Miller, who recommended him to Saturday Night Live (1975) producer Lorne Michaels and told him that Sandler had a big talent. This led to his being cast in the show in 1990, which he also wrote for in addition to performing. After Saturday Night Live (1975), Sandler went on to the movies, starring in such hit comedies as Airheads (1994), Happy Gilmore (1996), Billy Madison (1995) and Big Daddy (1999). He has also starred in Mr. Deeds (2002) alongside Winona Ryder; Eight Crazy Nights (2002), an animated movie about the Jewish festival of Chanukah; and Punch-Drunk Love (2002). He also writes and produces many of his own films and has composed songs for several of them, including The Wedding Singer (1998). Sandler has had several of his songs placed on the "Billboard" charts, including the classic "The Chanukah Song".- Actor
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John Christopher "Johnny" Depp II was born on June 9, 1963 in Owensboro, Kentucky, to Betty Sue Palmer (née Wells), a waitress, and John Christopher Depp, a civil engineer. He was raised in Florida. He dropped out of school when he was 15, and fronted a series of music-garage bands, including one named 'The Kids'. When he married Lori A. Depp, he took a job as a ballpoint-pen salesman to support himself and his wife. A visit to Los Angeles, California, with his wife, however, happened to be a blessing in disguise, when he met up with actor Nicolas Cage, who advised him to turn to acting, which culminated in Depp's film debut in the low-budget horror film, A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), where he played a teenager who falls prey to dream-stalking demon Freddy Krueger.
In 1987 he shot to stardom when he replaced Jeff Yagher in the role of undercover cop Tommy Hanson in the popular TV series 21 Jump Street (1987). In 1990, after numerous roles in teen-oriented films, his first of a handful of great collaborations with director Tim Burton came about when Depp played the title role in Edward Scissorhands (1990). Following the film's success, Depp carved a niche for himself as a serious, somewhat dark, idiosyncratic performer, consistently selecting roles that surprised critics and audiences alike. He continued to gain critical acclaim and increasing popularity by appearing in many features before re-joining with Burton in the lead role of Ed Wood (1994). In 1997 he played an undercover FBI agent in the fact-based film Donnie Brasco (1997), opposite Al Pacino; in 1998 he appeared in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998), directed by Terry Gilliam; and then, in 1999, he appeared in the sci-fi/horror film The Astronaut's Wife (1999). The same year he teamed up again with Burton in Sleepy Hollow (1999), brilliantly portraying Ichabod Crane.
Depp has played many characters in his career, including another fact-based one, Insp. Fred Abberline in From Hell (2001). He stole the show from screen greats such as Antonio Banderas in the finale to Robert Rodriguez's "mariachi" trilogy, Once Upon a Time in Mexico (2003). In that same year he starred in the marvelous family blockbuster Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003), playing a character that only the likes of Depp could pull off: the charming, conniving and roguish Capt. Jack Sparrow. The film's enormous success has opened several doors for his career and included an Oscar nomination. He appeared as the central character in the Stephen King-based movie, Secret Window (2004); as the kind-hearted novelist James Barrie in the factually-based Finding Neverland (2004), where he co-starred with Kate Winslet; and Rochester in the British film, The Libertine (2004). Depp collaborated again with Burton in a screen adaptation of Roald Dahl's novel, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005), and later in Alice in Wonderland (2010) and Dark Shadows (2012).
Off-screen, Depp has dated several female celebrities, and has been engaged to Sherilyn Fenn, Jennifer Grey, Winona Ryder and Kate Moss. He was married to Lori Anne Allison in 1983, but divorced her in 1985. Depp has two children with his former long-time partner, French singer/actress Vanessa Paradis: Lily-Rose Melody, born in 1999 and John Christopher "Jack" III, born in 2002. He married actress/producer Amber Heard in 2015, divorcing a few years later.- Actor
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Anthony Quinn was born Antonio Rodolfo Quinn Oaxaca (some sources indicate Manuel Antonio Rodolfo Quinn Oaxaca) on April 21, 1915, in Chihuahua, Mexico, to Manuela (Oaxaca) and Francisco Quinn, who became an assistant cameraman at a Los Angeles (CA) film studio. His paternal grandfather was Irish, and the rest of his family was Mexican.
After starting life in extremely modest circumstances in Mexico, his family moved to Los Angeles, where he grew up in the Boyle Heights and Echo Park neighborhoods. He played in the band of evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson as a youth and as a deputy preacher. He attended Polytechnic High School and later Belmont High, but eventually dropped out. The young Quinn boxed (which stood him in good stead as a stage actor, when he played Stanley Kowalski in "A Streetcar Named Desire" to rave reviews in Chicago), then later studied architecture under Frank Lloyd Wright at the great architect's studio, Taliesin, in Arizona. Quinn was close to Wright, who encouraged him when he decided to give acting a try. Made his credited film debut in Parole! (1936). After a brief apprenticeship on stage, Quinn hit Hollywood in 1936 and picked up a variety of small roles in several films at Paramount, including an Indian warrior in The Plainsman (1936), which was directed by the man who later became his father-in-law, Cecil B. DeMille.
As a contract player at Paramount, Quinn's roles were mainly ethnic types, such as an Arab chieftain in the Bing Crosby-Bob Hope comedy, Road to Morocco (1942). As a Mexican national (he did not become an American citizen until 1947), he was exempt from the draft. With many other actors in military service during WWII, he was able to move up into better supporting roles. He married DeMille's daughter Katherine DeMille, which afforded him entrance to the top circles of Hollywood society. He became disenchanted with his career and did not renew his Paramount contract despite the advice of others, including his father-in-law, with whom he did not get along (whom Quinn reportedly felt had never accepted him due to his Mexican roots; the two men were also on opposite ends of the political spectrum) but they eventually were able to develop a civil relationship. Quinn returned to the stage to hone his craft. His portrayal of Stanley Kowalski in "A Streetcar Named Desire" in Chicago and on Broadway (where he replaced the legendary Marlon Brando, who is forever associated with the role) made his reputation and boosted his film career when he returned to the movies.
Brando and Elia Kazan, who directed "Streetcar" on Broadway and on film (A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)), were crucial to Quinn's future success. Kazan, knowing the two were potential rivals due to their acclaimed portrayals of Kowalski, cast Quinn as Brando's brother in his biographical film of Mexican revolutionary Emiliano Zapata, Viva Zapata! (1952). Quinn won the Best Supporting Actor Academy Award for 1952, making him the first Mexican-American to win an Oscar. It was not to be his lone appearance in the winner's circle: he won his second Supporting Actor Oscar in 1957 for his portrayal of Paul Gauguin in Vincente Minnelli's biographical film of Vincent van Gogh, Lust for Life (1956), opposite Kirk Douglas. Over the next decade Quinn lived in Italy and became a major figure in world cinema, as many studios shot films in Italy to take advantage of the lower costs ("runaway production" had battered the industry since its beginnings in the New York/New Jersey area in the 1910s). He appeared in several Italian films, giving one of his greatest performances as the circus strongman who brutalizes the sweet soul played by Giulietta Masina in her husband Federico Fellini's masterpiece The Road (1954). He met his second wife, Jolanda Addolori, a wardrobe assistant, while he was in Rome filming Barabbas (1961).
Alternating between Europe and Hollywood, Quinn built his reputation and entered the front rank of character actors and character leads. He received his third Oscar nomination (and first for Best Actor) for George Cukor's Wild Is the Wind (1957). He played a Greek resistance fighter against the Nazi occupation in the monster hit The Guns of Navarone (1961) and received kudos for his portrayal of a once-great boxer on his way down in Rod Serling's Requiem for a Heavyweight (1962). He went back to playing ethnic roles, such as an Arab warlord in David Lean's masterpiece Lawrence of Arabia (1962), and he played the eponymous lead in the "sword-and-sandal" blockbuster Barabbas (1961). Two years later, he reached the zenith of his career, playing Zorba the Greek in the film of the same name (a.k.a. Zorba the Greek (1964)), which brought him his fourth, and last, Oscar nomination as Best Actor. The 1960s were kind to him: he played character leads in such major films as The Shoes of the Fisherman (1968) and The Secret of Santa Vittoria (1969). However, his appearance in the title role in the film adaptation of John Fowles' novel, The Magus (1968), did nothing to save the film, which was one of that decade's notorious turkeys.
In the 1960s, Quinn told Life magazine that he would fight against typecasting. Unfortunately, the following decade saw him slip back into playing ethnic types again, in such critical bombs as The Greek Tycoon (1978). He starred as the Hispanic mayor of a southwestern city on the short-lived television series The Man and the City (1971), but his career lost its momentum during the 1970s. Aside from playing a thinly disguised Aristotle Onassis in the cinematic roman-a-clef The Greek Tycoon (1978), his other major roles of the decade were as Hamza in the controversial The Message (1976) (a.k.a. "Mohammad, Messenger of God"); as the Italian patriarch in The Inheritance (1976); yet another Arab in Caravans (1978); and as a Mexican patriarch in The Children of Sanchez (1978). In 1983, he reprised his most famous role, Zorba the Greek, on Broadway in the revival of the musical "Zorba" for 362 performances (opposite Lila Kedrova, who had also appeared in the film, and won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her performance). His career slowed during the 1990s but he continued to work steadily in films and television, including an appearance with frequent film co-star Maureen O'Hara in Only the Lonely (1991).
Quinn lived out the latter years of his life in Bristol, Rhode Island, where he spent most of his time painting and sculpting. Beginning in 1982, he held numerous major exhibitions in cities such as Vienna, Paris, and Seoul. He died in a hospital in Boston at age 86 from pneumonia and respiratory failure linked to his battle with throat cancer.- Actress
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Rita Moreno is one of the very few performers to win an Oscar, an Emmy, a Tony and a Grammy, thus becoming an EGOT. She was born Rosita Dolores Alverío in the hospital in Humacao, Puerto Rico on December 11, 1931 (but raised in nearby, smaller Juncos, which had no hospital), to seamstress Rosa María (Marcano) and farmer Francisco José "Paco" Alverío. Her mother moved to New York City in 1937, taking Rita with her while leaving her reportedly unfaithful husband and Rita's younger brother behind. Rita's professional career began before she reached adolescence.
From the age of nine, she performed as a professional dancer in New York night clubs. At age 11, she landed her first movie experience, dubbing Spanish-language versions of US films. Less than a month before her 14th birthday on November 22, 1945, she made her Broadway debut in the play "Skydrift" at the Belasco Theatre, costarring with Arthur Keegan and a young Eli Wallach. Although she would not appear again on Broadway for almost two decades, Rita Moreno, as she was billed in the play, had arrived professionally. In 1950, she was signed by MGM, but the studio dropped her option after just one year.
The cover of the March 1, 1954, edition of "Life Magazine" featured a three-quarters, over-the-left-shoulder profile of the young Puerto Rican actress/entertainer with the provocative title "Rita Moreno: An Actresses' Catalog of Sex and Innocence". It was sexpot time, a stereotype that would plague her throughout the decade. If not cast as a Hispanic pepper pot, she could rely on being cast as another "exotic", such as her appearance on Father Knows Best (1954) as an exchange student from India. Because of a dearth of decent material, Moreno had to play roles in movies that she considered degrading. Among the better pictures she earned featured roles in were the classic Singin' in the Rain (1952) and The King and I (1956).
Director Robert Wise, who was chosen to co-direct West Side Story (1961) (the film version of the smash Broadway musical, a retelling of William Shakespeare's "Romeo & Juliet" with the warring Venetian clans the Montagues and Capulets re-envisioned as Irish/Polish and Puerto Rican adolescent street gangs, the Jets and the Sharks), cast Moreno as "Anita", the Puerto Rican girlfriend of Sharks' leader Bernardo, whose sister Maria is the piece's Juliet.
However, despite her talent, roles commensurate with that talent were not forthcoming in the 1960s. The following decade would prove kinder, possibly because the beautiful Moreno had aged gracefully and could now be seen by filmmakers, TV producers and casting directors as something other than the spitfire/sexpot that Hispanic women were supposed to conform to. Ironically, it was in two vastly diverging roles--that of a $100 hooker in director Mike Nichols' brilliant realization of Jules Feiffer's acerbic look at male sexuality, Carnal Knowledge (1971), and Milly the Helper in the children's TV show The Electric Company (1971)--that signaled a career renaissance.
Moreno won a 1972 Grammy Award for her contribution to "The Electric Company"'s soundtrack album, following it up three years later with a Tony Award as Best Featured Actress in a Musical for "The Ritz" (a role she would reprise in the film version, The Ritz (1976)). She then won Emmy Awards for The Muppet Show (1976) and The Rockford Files (1974).
She has continued to work steadily on screen (both large and small) and on stage, solidifying her reputation as a national treasure, a status that was officially ratified with the award of the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President George W. Bush in June 2004.- Producer
- Actor
- Executive
William Bradley "Brad" Pitt was born on December 18, 1963 in Shawnee, Oklahoma and raised in Springfield, Missouri to Jane Etta Pitt (née Hillhouse), a school counselor & William Alvin "Bill" Pitt, a truck company manager. At Kickapoo High School, Pitt was involved in sports, debating, student government and school musicals. Pitt attended the University of Missouri, where he majored in journalism with a focus on advertising. He occasionally acted in fraternity shows. He left college two credits short of graduating to move to California. Before he became successful at acting, Pitt supported himself by driving strippers in limos, moving refrigerators and dressing as a giant chicken while working for El Pollo Loco.
Pitt's earliest credited roles were in television, starting on the daytime soap opera Another World (1964) before appearing in the recurring role of Randy on the legendary prime time soap opera Dallas (1978). Following a string of guest appearances on various television series through the 1980s, Pitt gained widespread attention with a small part in Thelma & Louise (1991), in which he played a sexy criminal who romanced and conned Geena Davis. This led to starring roles in badly received films such as Johnny Suede (1991) & Cool World (1992).
But Pitt's career hit an upswing with his casting in A River Runs Through It (1992), which cemented his status as an multi-layered actor as opposed to just a pretty face. Pitt's subsequent projects were as quirky and varied in tone as his performances, ranging from his unforgettably comic cameo as stoner roommate Floyd in True Romance (1993) to romantic roles in such visually lavish films as Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles (1994) and Legends of the Fall (1994), to an emotionally tortured detective in the horror-thriller Se7en (1995). His portrayal of frenetic oddball Jeffrey Goines in 12 Monkeys (1995) won him a Globe for Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role.
Pitt's portrayal of Achilles in the big-budget period drama Troy (2004) helped establish his appeal as an action star and was closely followed by a co-starring role in the stylish spy-versus-spy flick Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005). It was on the set of Mr. & Mrs. Smith that Pitt, who married Jennifer Aniston in a highly publicized ceremony in 2000, met Angelina Jolie. Pitt left Aniston for Jolie in 2005, a break-up that continues to fuel tabloid stories years after its occurrence.
He continues to wildly vary his film choices, appearing in everything from high-concept popcorn flicks such as Megamind (2010) to adventurous critic-bait like Inglourious Basterds (2009) and The Tree of Life (2011). He has received two Best Actor Oscar nominations, for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008) and Moneyball (2011). In 2014, he starred in the war film Fury (2014), opposite Shia LaBeouf, Logan Lerman, Jon Bernthal, and Michael Peña.
Pitt and Jolie have 6 children, 3 adopted & 3 biological.- Actress
- Producer
- Director
Known outside her native country as the "Spanish enchantress," Penélope Cruz Sánchez was born in Madrid to Eduardo Cruz, a retailer, and Encarna Sánchez, a hairdresser. As a toddler, she was already a compulsive performer, re-enacting TV commercials for her family's amusement, but she decided to focus her energies on dance. After studying classical ballet for nine years at Spain's National Conservatory, she continued her training under a series of prominent dancers. At 15, however, she heeded her true calling when she bested more than 300 other girls at a talent agency audition. The resulting contract landed her several roles in Spanish TV shows and music videos, which in turn paved the way for a career on the big screen. Cruz made her movie debut in El laberinto griego (1993) (The Greek Labyrinth), then appeared briefly in the Timothy Dalton thriller Framed (1992). Her third film was the Oscar-winning Belle Epoque (1992), in which she played one of four sisters vying for the love of a handsome army deserter. The film also garnered several Goyas, the Spanish equivalent of the Academy Awards. Her resume continued to grow by three or four films each year, and soon Cruz was a leading lady of Spanish cinema. Live Flesh (1997) (Live Flesh) offered her the chance to work with renowned Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar (who would later be her ticket to international fame), and the same year she was the lead actress in the thriller/drama/mystery/sci-fi film Open Your Eyes (1997), a huge hit in Spain that earned eight Goyas (though none for Cruz). Her luck finally changed in 1998, when the movie-industry comedy The Girl of Your Dreams (1998) won her a Best Actress Goya. Cruz made a few more forays into English-language film, but her first big international hit was Almodóvar's All About My Mother (1999), in which she played an unchaste but well-meaning nun. As the film was showered with awards and accolades, Cruz suddenly found herself in demand on both sides of the Atlantic. Her next big project was Woman on Top (2000), an American comedy about a chef with bewitching culinary skills and a severe case of motion sickness. While in the US, she also signed up to star opposite Johnny Depp in the drug-trafficking drama Blow (2001) and opposite Matt Damon in Billy Bob Thornton's All the Pretty Horses (2000). Cruz says she's wary of being typecast as a beautiful young damsel, but it's hard to imagine disguising her wide-eyed charms and generous nature. Fortunately, with Cameron Crowe's Vanilla Sky (2001) (a remake of Open Your Eyes (1997)) and a John Madden collaboration looming in her future, Damsel Penelope isn't likely to disappear just yet.- Actor
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- Writer
Antonio Banderas, one of Spain's most famous faces, was a soccer player until breaking his foot at the age of fourteen; he is now an international movie star known for playing Zorro in the eponymous movie series.
He was born José Antonio Domínguez Banderas on August 10, 1960, in Málaga, Andalusia, Spain. His father, Jose Dominguez, was a policeman in the Spanish civil guards. His mother, Doña Ana Banderas Gallego, was a school teacher. Young Banderas was brought up a Roman Catholic. He wanted to play soccer professionally and made much success playing for his school team until the age of 14, albeit his dream ended when he broke his foot. At that time, he developed a passion for theatre after seeing the stage production of "Hair". Banderas began his acting studies at the School of Dramatic Arts in Málaga, and made his acting debut at a small theatre in Málaga. He was arrested by the Spanish police for performance in a play by Bertolt Brecht, because of political censorship under the rule of General Francisco Franco. Banderas spent a whole night at the police station, he had three or four such arrests while he was working with a small theatre troupe that toured all over Spain and was giving performances in small town theatres and on the street.
In 1979, at age 19, he moved to Madrid in pursuit of an acting career. Being a struggling young actor, he also worked as a waiter and took small modeling jobs. At that time, he joined the troupe at the National Theatre of Spain, becoming the youngest member of the company. Banderas' stage performances caught the attention of movie director Pedro Almodóvar, who cast the young actor in his movie debut Labyrinth of Passion (1982). Banderas and Almodovar joined forces in making innovative and sexually provocative movies during the 1980s. In 1984, Banderas made headlines in Spain with his performance as a gay man, making his first male-to-male on-screen kiss in Almodovar's Law of Desire (1987). Banderas' long and fruitful collaboration with Pedro Almodóvar eventually prepared him for international recognition that came with his work in the Academy Award-nominated film Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988). In 1991, he appeared as an object of Madonna's affection in Madonna: Truth or Dare (1991).
In 1992, Banderas made his Hollywood debut with The Mambo Kings (1992). Because he did not speak English at that time, his dialogue for the movie was taught to him phonetically. Banderas shot to international fame with his sensitive performance as a lover of Tom Hanks' AIDS-infected lawyer in Philadelphia (1993), then played opposite Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt in Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles (1994). Banderas further established himself as one of Hollywood's leading men after co-starring in Evita (1996) opposite Madonna in the title role. In 1998, he won acclaim for his portrayal of Zorro, opposite Anthony Hopkins and Catherine Zeta-Jones, in The Mask of Zorro (1998). For the role as Zorro, Banderas took training with the Olympic national fencing team in Spain, and practiced his moves with real steel swords, then he used the lighter aluminum swords in the movie. He also took a month-long course of horse-riding before the filming. He later returned to the role in The Legend of Zorro (2005). In 1999, Banderas made his directorial debut in Crazy in Alabama (1999), starring his wife, Melanie Griffith. He received critical acclaim for his portrayal of Mexican artist David Alfaro Siqueiros opposite Salma Hayek in Frida (2002). He voiced Puss in Boots in the Shrek franchise.
Banderas established himself as internationally known Latin heartthrob with charismatic looks, and was chosen as one of the 50 most beautiful people in the world by People magazine in 1996. He won numerous awards and nominations for his works in film, including three ALMA awards and three Golden Globe nominations, among many other. From 1996 to 2014, Banderas was married to American actress Melanie Griffith and the couple have one daughter, Stella (born 1996). Outside of his acting profession, Banderas has been a passionate soccer fan and a staunch supporter of the Real Madrid Football Club. He shares time between his two residencies, one in the United States, and one in the South of Spain.- Actor
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- Producer
Imanol Arias began his career with a traveling theatre group in Spain performing in Euskadi (Basque Country). After minor roles on stage, he travels to Cuba to shoot Cecilia (1982) directed by Humberto Solás. In 1987 he won the Concha de Plata of the San Sebastian Film Festival for the biography of Eleuterio Sánchez, El Lute: Run for Your Life (1987) directed by Vicente Aranda.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Leonardo Sbaraglia was born on 30 June 1970 in Sáenz Peña, Tres de Febrero, Buenos Aires, Argentina. He is an actor, known for Pain and Glory (2019), The Silence of the Sky (2016) and Intacto (2001).