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