Fortunio Bonanova
Acting
Born: January 13, 1895 · Palma de Mallorca, Mallorca, Balearic Islands, Spain
Died: April 2, 1969 (aged 74)
Highest Rated
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.
Photos (1)
Movies (72)
Citizen Kane
Signor Matiste
Double Indemnity
Sam Garlopis
An Affair to Remember
Courbet
Adventures of Don Juan
Don Serafino Lopez
For Whom the Bell Tolls
Fernando
The Black Swan
Don Miguel (uncredited)
Kiss Me Deadly
Carmen Trivago
The Mark of Zorro
Sentry (uncredited)
The Fugitive
The Governor's Cousin
Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves
Old Baba
Five Graves to Cairo
Gen. Sebastiano
Blood and Sand
Pedro Espinosa
Romance on the High Seas
Plinio
Going My Way
Tomaso Bozanni
Whirlpool
Feruccio di Ravallo
The Running Man
Spanish Bank Manager
I Was an Adventuress
Orchestra Leader
The Moon Is Blue
Television Performer
The Saga of Hemp Brown
Serge Bolanos
A Yank in the R.A.F.
Louie - Headwaiter
A Bell for Adano
Gargano
So This Is Love
Dr. Marafioti
The Ballad of Hector the Stowaway Dog
Inspector
September Affair
Grazzi
Thunder in the Sun
Fernando Christophe
That Night in Rio
Pereira, the Headwaiter
Fiesta
Antonio Morales
Four Jacks and a Jill
Mike - Nightclub Owner (uncredited)
Dixie
Waiter
Mrs. Parkington
Signor Cellini
Man Alive
Prof. Zorado
Death Whistles the Blues
Comisario Fenton
Bad Men of Tombstone
John Mingo
They Met in Argentina
Pedro, Ranch Blacksmith (uncredited)
Girl Trouble
Simon Cordoba
Where Do We Go from Here?
Christopher Columbus
Nancy Goes to Rio
Ricardo Domingos
Second Chance
Mandy, hotel owner
Romance in the Dark
Tenor
Bulldog Drummond in Africa
African Police Corporal
The Girl on The Roof
TV host
Thunder Bay
Sheriff Antoine Chighizola
Two Latins from Manhattan
Armando Rivero
Conquest of Cochise
Mexican Minister
Mr. and Mrs. North
Buano
Angel on the Amazon
Sebastian Ortega
Obliging Young Lady
Chef
New York Confidential
Senor
Down Argentine Way
Hotel Manager
Careless Lady
Rodriguez
The Sultan's Daughter
Kuda
Larceny, Inc.
Anton Copoulos
Monsieur Beaucaire
Don Carlos
Rose of Santa Rosa
Don Manuel Ortega
El desaparecido
1934
Moon Over Miami
Mr. Pretto, the Hotel Manager
Havana Rose
Ambassador DeMarco
Jaguar
Francisco Servente
Tropic Holiday
Barrera
The Red Dragon
Insp. Luis Carvero
Brazil
Senor Renaldo Da Silva
Unfinished Business
Impresario
El carnaval del diablo
1936
A Successful Calamity
Pietro Rafaelo
With This Ring
Senor Corelli, Opera Singer
The Kneeling Goddess
1947
Pepita Jiménez
Don Pedro Vargas
Pacto con el Diablo (o el socio, Mr. Davis)
1929
My Best Gal
Charlie
Don Juan Tenorio
Don Juan Tenorio
La pícara Susana
Conde Mauricio Tonescu
Poderoso caballero
1935
TV Shows (8)
I Love Lucy
Professor · 1 eps
77 Sunset Strip
Santos · 1 eps
December Bride
1 eps
The Abbott and Costello Show
Uncle Bozzo · 1 eps
The Abbott and Costello Show
Prof. Roberto · 1 eps
Racket Squad
1 eps
The Count of Monte Cristo
3 eps
General Electric Theater
1 eps