Francisco Rabal
Personal Info
Known For
Acting
Known Credits
203
Gender
Male
Birthday
1926-03-08
Day of death
2001-08-29 (75 years old)
Place of Birth
Águilas, Murcia, Región de Murcia, Spain
Francisco Rabal
Biography
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Francisco Rabal (March 8, 1926 – August 29, 2001), perhaps better known as Paco Rabal, was a Spanish actor born in Águilas, a small town in the province of Murcia, Spain. In 1936, after the Spanish Civil War broke out. Rabal and his family left Murcia and moved to Madrid. Young Francisco had to work as a street salesboy and in a chocolate factory. When he was 13 years old, he left school to work as an electrician at Estudios Chamartín. Rabal got some sporadic jobs as an extra. Dámaso Alonso and other people advised him to try his luck with a career in theater. During the following years, he got some roles in theater companies such as Lope de Vega or María Guerrero. It was there that he met actress Asunción Balaguer; they married and remained together for the rest of Rabal's life. Their daughter, Teresa Rabal, is also an actor. In 1947, Rabal got some regular jobs in theater. He used his full name, Francisco Rabal, as stage name. However, the people who knew him always called him Paco Rabal. (Paco is the familiar form for Francisco.) "Paco Rabal" became his unofficial stage name. During the 1940s, Rabal began acting in movies as an extra, but it was not until 1950 that he was first cast in speaking roles, and played romantic leads and rogues. He starred in three films directed by Luis Buñuel - Nazarín (1959), Viridiana (1961) and Belle de jour (1967). William Friedkin thought of Rabal for the French villain of his 1971 movie The French Connection. However, he could not remember the name of "that Spanish actor". Mistakenly, his staff hired another Spanish actor, Fernando Rey. Friedkin discovered that Rabal did not speak English or French, so he decided to keep Rey. Rabal has previously worked with Rey in Viridiana. Rabal did, however, work with Friedkin in the much less successful but Academy Award-nominated cult classic Sorcerer (1977), a remake of The Wages of Fear (1953). Throughout his career, Rabal worked in France, Italy and Mexico with directors such as Gillo Pontecorvo, Michelangelo Antonioni, Luchino Visconti, Valerio Zurlini, Jacques Rivette and Alberto Lattuada. It is widely considered that Rabal's best performances came after Francisco Franco's death on 1975. In the 1980s, Rabal starred in Los santos inocentes, winning the Award as Best Actor in Cannes Film Festival, in El Disputado Voto del Señor Cayo and also in the TV series Juncal. In 1989, he was a member of the jury at the 39th Berlin International Film Festival. In the 1999 he played the character of Francisco Goya in Carlos Saura Goya en Burdeos, winning a Goya Award as Best Actor. Francisco Rabal is the only Spanish actor to have received a honoris causa doctoral degree from the University of Murcia. Rabal's final movie was Dagon, a film which was dedicated to him right before the credits. The dedication read "Dedicated to Francisco Rabal, a wonderful actor and even better human being." Rabal died in 2001 from compensatory dilating emphysema, while on an airplane travelling to Bordeaux, when he was coming back from receiving an Award at Montreal Film Festival. Description above from the Wikipedia article Francisco Rabal, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Known For
L'Eclisse
Azahares rojos
María Morena
Felicidades, Tovarich
Tormento
Epilogue
Dagon
Planet Venus
Buñuel
Our Father
Doubt
Divine Words
Oedipus Mayor
Don Juan Tenorio
Nazarín
Simón Bolívar
Stay as You Are
Cutting Heads
El buscón
Exorcism's Daughter
Alhucemas
Eagles Over London
María Antonia "La Caramba"
Revelation
Saranno uomini
The Other Woman
The Female: Seventy Times Seven
Hotel Fear
The Other
After the Deluge
Marisa
Le avventure e gli amori di Miguel Cervantes
El gran secreto
Laia
Coarse Salt
Hijo de hombre
La vieja música
Ni contigo ni sin ti
Path to the Kingdom
The Witches
La taberna fantástica
Speaking of Buñuel
Radio Stories
Talk of Angels
Belle de Jour
Airbag
Lázaro de Tormes
Fight to the Death
Baroque
Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!
Summer Night
Sorcerer
Diez fusiles esperan
Bohemian Nights
El disputado voto del señor Cayo
The Holy Innocents
Reborn
Teresa de Jesús
Nightmare City
Viridiana
Divertimento
Land Without Bread
Le soldat Laforêt
Long Days of Vengeance
Cuenca
The Big Hit
Fortunata and Jacinta
María Rosa
Tiempo de silencio
Perseguidos
Crooks
Pigeon Shoot
The Desert of the Tartars
The Nun
Cervantes
Truhanes
Il giovane Garibaldi
Under Siege
Little Bird
One Hundred and One Nights
Don Quixote
I Am the Law
It Can Be Done Amigo
The Beehive
Little Miracles
It's Nothing Mama, Just a Game
La novia de medianoche
The Blue Panther
Goya in Bordeaux
The Lame Pigeon
Day and Night
El canto del gallo
La otra imagen
Camorra (A Story of Streets, Women and Crime)
Treasure of the Four Crowns
The Mighty Crusaders
Revenge
Los desastres de la guerra
Imágenes perdidas
La gran mentira
Salzillo
The White Dove
A Time of Destiny
Los zancos
All Is Possible in Granada
The Guerrilla
Ann and Eve
Counselor at Crime
Eye of the Cat
On Earth as It Is in Heaven
L'uomo dai calzoni corti
Blood in the Bullring
El hermano bastardo de Dios
Death of a Cyclist
The Witching Hour
La colonna infame
Io sono mia
Juncal
Weeping for a Bandit
Speed Driver
Scent of a Crime
Bloody Che Contra
La Lola se va a los puertos
La leyenda del alcalde de Zalamea
Legacy of the Incas
El hombre de la isla
History
The Challenges
Corleone
Sonatas
El apartamento de la tentación
Scapegoat
N.P. - The Secret
The Rebel
La noche y el alba
The Man Who Lost His Shadow
The Tempter
Hoy como ayer
Vultures Over the City
Autopsia de un criminal
Victòria! 2: La disbauxa del 17
Marbella
Divine
I Was a Parish Priest
Oscuros sueños de agosto
The Long Vacations of '36
Emilia... parada y fonda
Nada menos que todo un hombre
Il mistero del panino assassino
C.I.A. Secret Story
Un delitto
Just Run!
Death Will Have Your Eyes
The Lost Paradise
The Big Black Sow
Un adulterio decente
Mathias Sandorf
Hay un camino a la derecha
Intimidad de los parques
Hunted City
Dormir Y Ligar: Todo Es Empezar
Whom God Forgives
The Miller's Saucy Wife
Torquemada
Moonfish
Goya: A Story of Solitude
The Devil Also Cries
La mujer cualquiera
Camino del Rocío
Luna de sangre
Victòria! La gran aventura d'un poble
Judas' Kiss
Blanca's Weddings
Les Anges exterminés
The Hand in the Trap
The Revolution on Two Horses
Spain Again
The Wide Blue Road
La honradez de la cerradura
Victòria! 3: El seny i la rauxa
La rueda de la vida
La peccatrice
The City of World
Currito de la Cruz
El crimen de Pepe Conde
The Dead Man
Manuel, le fils emprunté
Futuro Imperfecto
The Reunion
Ciao Cialtroni!
At Five in the Afternoon
Trío de damas
Zero/infinito
Les paradoxes de Buñuel
Water Easy Reach
Cavalcata selvaggia
Murió hace quince años
Nights of Constantinople
I tromboni di Fra' Diavolo
España insólita
Two Men in Town
Paco, mi padre
Diario Spagnolo
