
Fortunio Bonanova
Personal Info
Known for
Acting
Gender
Male
Birthday
1895-01-13
Day of Death
1969-04-02 (74 years old)
Place of Birth
Palma de Mallorca, Mallorca, Balearic Islands, Spain
Fortunio Bonanova
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
Acting
(1964)
The Ballad of Hector the Stowaway Dog
as Inspector
(1964)
Death Whistles the Blues
as Comisario Fenton
(1963)
The Running Man
as Spanish Bank Manager
(1959)
Thunder in the Sun
as Fernando Christophe
(1958)
The Saga of Hemp Brown
as Serge Bolanos
(1957)
An Affair to Remember
as Courbet
(1956)
Jaguar
as Francisco Servente
(1955)
Kiss Me Deadly
as Carmen Trivago
(1955)
New York Confidential
as Senor
(1954)
With This Ring
as Senor Corelli, Opera Singer
(1953)
The Moon Is Blue
as Television Performer
(1953)
Conquest of Cochise
as Mexican Minister
(1953)
Thunder Bay
as Sheriff Antoine Chighizola
(1953)
Second Chance
as Mandy, hotel owner
(1953)
So This Is Love
as Dr. Marafioti
(1953)
The Girl on The Roof
as TV host
(1951)
Havana Rose
as Ambassador DeMarco
(1950)
September Affair
as Grazzi
(1950)
Whirlpool
as Feruccio di Ravallo
(1950)
Nancy Goes to Rio
as Ricardo Domingos
(1949)
Bad Men of Tombstone
as John Mingo
(1948)
Romance on the High Seas
as Plinio
(1948)
Angel on the Amazon
as Sebastian Ortega
(1948)
Adventures of Don Juan
as Don Serafino Lopez
(1947)
(1947)
Rose of Santa Rosa
as Don Manuel Ortega
(1947)
The Fugitive
as The Governor's Cousin
(1947)
Fiesta
as Antonio Morales
(1946)
Monsieur Beaucaire
as Don Carlos
(1946)
Pepita Jimenez
as Don Pedro Vargas
(1945)
A Bell for Adano
as Gargano - Chief of Police
(1945)
(1945)
Hit the Hay
as Mario Alvini
(1945)
The Red Dragon
as Insp. Luis Carvero
(1945)
Man Alive
as Prof. Zorado
(1945)
Where Do We Go from Here?
as Christopher Columbus
(1944)
Going My Way
as Tomaso Bozanni
(1944)
Double Indemnity
as Sam Garlopis
(1944)
Mrs. Parkington
as Signor Cellini
(1944)
Brazil
as Senor Renaldo Da Silva
(1944)
Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves
as Old Baba
(1944)
My Best Gal
as Charlie
(1943)
Five Graves to Cairo
as Gen. Sebastiano
(1943)
The Sultan's Daughter
as Kuda
(1943)
For Whom the Bell Tolls
as Fernando
(1943)
Dixie
as Waiter
(1942)
Larceny, Inc.
as Anton Copoulos
(1942)
Mr. and Mrs. North
as Buano
(1942)
The Black Swan
as Don Miguel (uncredited)
(1942)
Four Jacks and a Jill
as Mike - Nightclub Owner (uncredited)
(1942)
Obliging Young Lady
as Chef
(1942)
Girl Trouble
as Simon Cordoba
(1941)
Citizen Kane
as Signor Matiste
(1941)
A Yank in the R.A.F.
as Louie - Headwaiter
(1941)
Moon Over Miami
as Mr. Pretto, the Hotel Manager
(1941)
Two Latins from Manhattan
as Armando Rivero
(1941)
Blood and Sand
as Pedro Espinosa
(1941)
Unfinished Business
as Impresario
(1941)
That Night in Rio
as Pereira, the Headwaiter
(1940)
Down Argentine Way
as Hotel Manager
(1940)
The Mark of Zorro
as Sentry (uncredited)
(1940)
I Was an Adventuress
as Orchestra Leader
(1938)
Tropic Holiday
as Barrera
(1938)
Bulldog Drummond in Africa
as African Police Corporal
(1938)
Romance in the Dark
as Tenor
(1936)
(1935)
(1932)
A Successful Calamity
as Pietro Rafaelo
(1932)
Careless Lady
as Rodriguez
(1929)
(1928)
(1922)
Don Juan Tenorio
as Don Juan Tenorio
Crew
(1929)
(1928)
Las cuatro plumas
Director, Adaptation, Editor