Francisco Rabal
Personal Info
Known For
Acting
Known Credits
202
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
One Hundred and One Nights
It's Nothing Mama, Just a Game
La peccatrice
Dagon
Camorra (A Story of Streets, Women and Crime)
María Morena
The Reunion
Simón Bolívar
Nazarin
The Nun
Hotel Fear
Futuro Imperfecto
Azahares rojos
Doubt
L'Eclisse
Airbag
Victòria! 2: La disbauxa del 17
Oedipus Mayor
The Challenges
El buscón
The Beehive
Coarse Salt
Un delitto
Felicidades, Tovarich
Marbella
The Witches
Divine Words
Le avventure e gli amori di Miguel Cervantes
Los zancos
Stay as You Are
Exorcism's Daughter
Belle de Jour
The Guerrilla
Epilogue
Treasure of the Four Crowns
Revenge
Alhucemas
Sorcerer
Cutting Heads
Mathias Sandorf
Tormento
Il mistero del panino assassino
Fight to the Death
Speed Driver
Land Without Bread
Laia
Death of a Cyclist
The Hand in the Trap
The Desert of the Tartars
Counselor at Crime
The Lost Paradise
Buñuel
El canto del gallo
Weeping for a Bandit
Day and Night
Dormir Y Ligar: Todo Es Empezar
Don Quixote
Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!
La gran mentira
Divine
La honradez de la cerradura
Goya in Bordeaux
The White Dove
El apartamento de la tentación
I Was a Parish Priest
María Rosa
Judas' Kiss
Io sono mia
The Long Vacations of '36
Pigeon Shoot
The City of World
Legacy of the Incas
La noche y el alba
Our Father
Viridiana
The Wide Blue Road
The Mighty Crusaders
The Lame Pigeon
The Big Black Sow
It Can Be Done Amigo
Vultures Over the City
Murió hace quince años
Currito de la Cruz
The Other Woman
Scapegoat
Un adulterio decente
Talk of Angels
Planet Venus
The Witching Hour
The Holy Innocents
La Lola se va a los puertos
Trío de damas
The Tempter
Under Siege
The Man Who Lost His Shadow
Tiempo de silencio
El crimen de Pepe Conde
Les paradoxes de Buñuel
Hay un camino a la derecha
La rueda de la vida
Speaking of Buñuel
The Blue Panther
El hombre de la isla
Hunted City
Oscuros sueños de agosto
Marisa
A Time of Destiny
La vieja música
Path to the Kingdom
Revelation
Ann and Eve
Bloody Che Contra
Blanca's Weddings
I tromboni di Fra' Diavolo
La leyenda del alcalde de Zalamea
N.P. - The Secret
Perseguidos
Hijo de hombre
I Am the Law
The Rebel
El gran secreto
Eagles Over London
The Miller's Saucy Wife
Death Will Have Your Eyes
Emilia... parada y fonda
Teresa de Jesús
Radio Stories
María Antonia "La Caramba"
Diez fusiles esperan
Nights of Constantinople
Don Juan Tenorio
Nada menos que todo un hombre
Saranno uomini
Little Bird
La taberna fantástica
El disputado voto del señor Cayo
Scent of a Crime
The Big Hit
Fortunata and Jacinta
Whom God Forgives
Nightmare City
Camino del Rocío
Lázaro de Tormes
Spain Again
La colonna infame
The Female: Seventy Times Seven
Hoy como ayer
After the Deluge
Baroque
Juncal
Long Days of Vengeance
The Revolution on Two Horses
L'uomo dai calzoni corti
La mujer cualquiera
Cervantes
On Earth as It Is in Heaven
Just Run!
Truhanes
Summer Night
Divertimento
Los desastres de la guerra
Corleone
C.I.A. Secret Story
Il giovane Garibaldi
Victòria! La gran aventura d'un poble
Eye of the Cat
Reborn
El hermano bastardo de Dios
Bohemian Nights
La otra imagen
Les Anges exterminés
Crooks
Blood in the Bullring
Ni contigo ni sin ti
All Is Possible in Granada
Water Easy Reach
Autopsia de un criminal
Imágenes perdidas
Torquemada
Little Miracles
Peixe-Lua
La novia de medianoche
España insólita
History
The Dead Man
Le soldat Laforêt
Goya: A Story of Solitude
Two Men in Town
The Other
At Five in the Afternoon
Victòria! 3: El seny i la rauxa
The Devil Also Cries
Sonatas
Cavalcata selvaggia
Luna de sangre
Manuel, le fils emprunté
Intimidad de los parques
Ciao Cialtroni!
Zero/infinito
Cuenca
Diario Spagnolo
Salzillo
