Fortunio Bonanova
- Known for
- Acting
- Born
- January 13, 1895
- Died
- April 2, 1969 (aged 74)
- Birthplace
- Palma de Mallorca, Mallorca, Balearic Islands, Spain
Biography
Fortunio Bonanova, pseudonym of Josep Lluís Moll, (13 January 1895 – 2 April 1969) was a Spanish baritone singer and a film, theater, and television actor. He occasionally worked as a producer and director. According to Lluis Fàbregas Cuixart, the pseudonym Fortunio Bonanova referred to his desire to seek fortune, and his love of the Bonanova neighborhood in his native Palma. As a young man, living under his birthname, he was a professional telegraph operator. He studied music with the Italian Giovachini. In 1921, he debuted as a singer in Tannhäuser, at the Teatre Principal in Palma. That year, along with a group of Majorcan intellectuals and Jorge Luis Borges (who was briefly living in Majorca with his parents and sister), he signed the Ultraist Manifesto, using the name Fortunio Bonanova. Also in 1921, he appeared in a silent film of Don Juan Tenorio by the brothers Baños, which was shown the following year in New York City and Hollywood. He later directed his own Don Juan in 1924. In 1927, he acted in Love of Sunya, directed by Albert Parker and starring Gloria Swanson. In 1932 he had small parts in Hollywood productions featuring Joan Bennett and Mary Astor. In the same period, he appeared in New York in several operas as well as the zarzuelas La Canción del Olvido ("The song of forgetting"), La Duquesa del Tabarín ("The Duchess of Tabarín"), Los Gavilanes, and La Montería. In 1934, he returned to Spain, where he had a major role in the film El Desaparecido ("The disappeared one") written and directed by Antonio Graciani. In 1935 he acted and sang in the film Poderoso Caballero ("A Big Guy"), directed by Màximo Nossik. In 1936, with the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, he returned to the United States, where he played the role of Captain Bill in a film called Capitán Tormenta, directed by Jules Bernhardt. A sequence of increasingly larger acting and singing roles mostly in English-language films followed, especially after 1940. Among his roles were Signor Matiste, Susan Alexander Kane's opera coach in Citizen Kane (1941); General Sebastiano in Five Graves to Cairo (1943); Don Miguel in The Black Swan (1942); Fernando in For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943); Sam Garlopis in Double Indemnity (1944); and a singing Christopher Columbus in Where Do We Go From Here?. He continued for the next several decades in a miscellany of character roles.
Known For
Filmography
Death Whistles the Blues
Movie · as Comisario Fenton
The Ballad of Hector the Stowaway Dog
Movie · as Inspector
The Running Man
Movie · as Spanish Bank Manager
Thunder in the Sun
Movie · as Fernando Christophe
The Saga of Hemp Brown
Movie · as Serge Bolanos
77 Sunset Strip
TV · as Santos · 1 ep
An Affair to Remember
Movie · as Courbet
Jaguar
Movie · as Francisco Servente
The Count of Monte Cristo
TV · 3 eps
New York Confidential
Movie · as Senor
Kiss Me Deadly
Movie · as Carmen Trivago
With This Ring
Movie · as Senor Corelli, Opera Singer
December Bride
TV · 1 ep
Second Chance
Movie · as Mandy, hotel owner
Thunder Bay
Movie · as Sheriff Antoine Chighizola
The Moon Is Blue
Movie · as Television Performer
So This Is Love
Movie · as Dr. Marafioti
The Girl on The Roof
Movie · as TV host
Conquest of Cochise
Movie · as Mexican Minister
General Electric Theater
TV · 1 ep
The Abbott and Costello Show
TV · as Uncle Bozzo, Prof. Roberto · 1 ep
Havana Rose
Movie · as Ambassador DeMarco
I Love Lucy
TV · as Professor · 1 ep
Racket Squad
TV · 1 ep
Whirlpool
Movie · as Feruccio di Ravallo
September Affair
Movie · as Grazzi
Nancy Goes to Rio
Movie · as Ricardo Domingos
Bad Men of Tombstone
Movie · as John Mingo
Adventures of Don Juan
Movie · as Don Serafino Lopez
Romance on the High Seas
Movie · as Plinio
Angel on the Amazon
Movie · as Sebastian Ortega
The Fugitive
Movie · as The Governor's Cousin
Fiesta
Movie · as Antonio Morales
The Kneeling Goddess
Movie
Rose of Santa Rosa
Movie · as Don Manuel Ortega
Pepita Jiménez
Movie · as Don Pedro Vargas
Monsieur Beaucaire
Movie · as Don Carlos
The Red Dragon
Movie · as Insp. Luis Carvero
Man Alive
Movie · as Prof. Zorado
Hit the Hay
Movie · as Mario Alvini
Where Do We Go from Here?
Movie · as Christopher Columbus
La pícara Susana
Movie · as Conde Mauricio Tonescu
A Bell for Adano
Movie · as Gargano
Double Indemnity
Movie · as Sam Garlopis
Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves
Movie · as Old Baba
Mrs. Parkington
Movie · as Signor Cellini
My Best Gal
Movie · as Charlie
Brazil
Movie · as Senor Renaldo Da Silva
Going My Way
Movie · as Tomaso Bozanni
Five Graves to Cairo
Movie · as Gen. Sebastiano
Dixie
Movie · as Waiter
The Sultan's Daughter
Movie · as Kuda
For Whom the Bell Tolls
Movie · as Fernando
Larceny, Inc.
Movie · as Anton Copoulos
Four Jacks and a Jill
Movie · as Mike - Nightclub Owner (uncredited)
Girl Trouble
Movie · as Simon Cordoba
Obliging Young Lady
Movie · as Chef
Mr. and Mrs. North
Movie · as Buano
The Black Swan
Movie · as Don Miguel (uncredited)
Citizen Kane
Movie · as Signor Matiste
A Yank in the R.A.F.
Movie · as Louie - Headwaiter
Moon Over Miami
Movie · as Mr. Pretto, the Hotel Manager
That Night in Rio
Movie · as Pereira, the Headwaiter
Blood and Sand
Movie · as Pedro Espinosa
Unfinished Business
Movie · as Impresario
Two Latins from Manhattan
Movie · as Armando Rivero
They Met in Argentina
Movie · as Pedro, Ranch Blacksmith (uncredited)
Down Argentine Way
Movie · as Hotel Manager
I Was an Adventuress
Movie · as Orchestra Leader
The Mark of Zorro
Movie · as Sentry (uncredited)
Tropic Holiday
Movie · as Barrera
Bulldog Drummond in Africa
Movie · as African Police Corporal
Romance in the Dark
Movie · as Tenor
El carnaval del diablo
Movie
Poderoso caballero
Movie
El desaparecido
Movie
Careless Lady
Movie · as Rodriguez
A Successful Calamity
Movie · as Pietro Rafaelo
Pacto con el Diablo (o el socio, Mr. Davis)
Movie
Las cuatro plumas
Movie
Don Juan Tenorio
Movie · as Don Juan Tenorio