Fortunio Bonanova
- Known for
- Acting
- Born
- January 13, 1895
- Died
- April 2, 1969
- Birthplace
- Palma de Mallorca, Mallorca, Balearic Islands, Spain
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.
Filmography
Death Whistles the Blues 1964
as Comisario Fenton
The Ballad of Hector the Stowaway Dog 1964
as Inspector
The Running Man 1963
as Spanish Bank Manager
Thunder in the Sun 1959
as Fernando Christophe
The Saga of Hemp Brown 1958
as Serge Bolanos
An Affair to Remember 1957
as Courbet
Jaguar 1956
as Francisco Servente
Kiss Me Deadly 1955
as Carmen Trivago
New York Confidential 1955
as Senor
With This Ring 1954
as Senor Corelli, Opera Singer
The Girl on The Roof 1953
as TV host
Conquest of Cochise 1953
as Mexican Minister
Second Chance 1953
as Mandy, hotel owner
So This Is Love 1953
as Dr. Marafioti
The Moon Is Blue 1953
as Television Performer
Thunder Bay 1953
as Sheriff Antoine Chighizola
Havana Rose 1951
as Ambassador DeMarco
September Affair 1950
as Grazzi
Nancy Goes to Rio 1950
as Ricardo Domingos
Whirlpool 1950
as Feruccio di Ravallo
Bad Men of Tombstone 1949
as John Mingo
Adventures of Don Juan 1948
as Don Serafino Lopez
Angel on the Amazon 1948
as Sebastian Ortega
Romance on the High Seas 1948
as Plinio
Rose of Santa Rosa 1947
as Don Manuel Ortega
The Fugitive 1947
as The Governor's Cousin
The Kneeling Goddess 1947
Actor
Fiesta 1947
as Antonio Morales
Monsieur Beaucaire 1946
as Don Carlos
Pepita Jiménez 1946
as Don Pedro Vargas
- Hit the Hay
Hit the Hay 1945
as Mario Alvini
Man Alive 1945
as Prof. Zorado
The Red Dragon 1945
as Insp. Luis Carvero
A Bell for Adano 1945
as Gargano
La pícara Susana 1945
as Conde Mauricio Tonescu
Where Do We Go from Here? 1945
as Christopher Columbus
Brazil 1944
as Senor Renaldo Da Silva
Mrs. Parkington 1944
as Signor Cellini
Double Indemnity 1944
as Sam Garlopis
My Best Gal 1944
as Charlie
Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves 1944
as Old Baba
Going My Way 1944
as Tomaso Bozanni
The Sultan's Daughter 1943
as Kuda
For Whom the Bell Tolls 1943
as Fernando
Dixie 1943
as Waiter
Five Graves to Cairo 1943
as Gen. Sebastiano
The Black Swan 1942
as Don Miguel (uncredited)
Girl Trouble 1942
as Simon Cordoba
Larceny, Inc. 1942
as Anton Copoulos
Obliging Young Lady 1942
as Chef
Mr. and Mrs. North 1942
as Buano
Four Jacks and a Jill 1942
as Mike - Nightclub Owner (uncredited)
Two Latins from Manhattan 1941
as Armando Rivero
A Yank in the R.A.F. 1941
as Louie - Headwaiter
Unfinished Business 1941
as Impresario
Moon Over Miami 1941
as Mr. Pretto, the Hotel Manager
Blood and Sand 1941
as Pedro Espinosa
They Met in Argentina 1941
as Pedro, Ranch Blacksmith (uncredited)
Citizen Kane 1941
as Signor Matiste
That Night in Rio 1941
as Pereira, the Headwaiter
The Mark of Zorro 1940
as Sentry (uncredited)
Down Argentine Way 1940
as Hotel Manager
I Was an Adventuress 1940
as Orchestra Leader
Bulldog Drummond in Africa 1938
as African Police Corporal
Tropic Holiday 1938
as Barrera
Romance in the Dark 1938
as Tenor
El carnaval del diablo 1936
Actor
Poderoso caballero 1935
Actor
El desaparecido 1934
Actor
A Successful Calamity 1932
as Pietro Rafaelo
Careless Lady 1932
as Rodriguez
Pacto con el Diablo (o el socio, Mr. Davis) 1929
Actor, Director
- Las cuatro plumas
Las cuatro plumas 1928
Actor, Director, Adaptation, Editor
Don Juan Tenorio 1922
as Don Juan Tenorio
Credits from TMDB.