Francisco Rabal
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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.
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Known for
Belle de Jour
Hyppolite
Sorcerer
Nilo
Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!
Máximo Espejo
Stay as You Are
Lorenzo
Airbag
Villambrosa
L'Eclisse
Riccardo
Dagon
Ezequiel
Le avventure e gli amori di Miguel Cervantes
Rodrigo Cervantes
Little Bird
El Abuelo
Viridiana
Jorge
Marisa
Antonio
Teresa de Jesús
Alonso
It Can Be Done Amigo
Sheriff
Nazarin
Father Nazario
The Witches
Paolo (segment "La strega bruciata viva")
One Hundred and One Nights
Luis Buñuel (voice)
The Desert of the Tartars
M.llo Tronk
Eagles Over London
Martin
Nightmare City
Major Warren Holmes
The Nun
Dom Morel
Death of a Cyclist
(uncredited)
The Holy Innocents
Azarías
Speaking of Buñuel
Self
The Beehive
Ricardo Sorbedo
Truhanes
Ginés Giménez
It's Nothing Mama, Just a Game
Tío
Pigeon Shoot
Elia
I Am the Law
Albanese the Outlaw
Cervantes
Mateo Alemán
Hunted City
Don Alfonso
Hotel Fear
Marta's lover
Day and Night
Cristobal
Los desastres de la guerra
Goya
The Blue Panther
Paco Castillo
Fortunata and Jacinta
José Izquierdo
Un adulterio decente
Conserje (uncredited)
Under Siege
William Lombard
The Mighty Crusaders
Tancredi d'Altavilla
Goya in Bordeaux
Goya
Blood in the Bullring
Juan Carmona
The White Dove
Domingo
C.I.A. Secret Story
Mehdi Ben Barka
Cutting Heads
Díaz II
Camorra (A Story of Streets, Women and Crime)
Guaglione
Don Quixote
(uncredited)
Corleone
Don Giusto Provenzano
Talk of Angels
Don Jorge
Ann and Eve
Francesco
Bloody Che Contra
Che Guevara
Eye of the Cat
Eminenza
Exorcism's Daughter
Fuso
Treasure of the Four Crowns
Sócrates
Vultures Over the City
Bender
Oedipus Mayor
Tiresias
La honradez de la cerradura
Ernesto
Long Days of Vengeance
Sheriff Douglas
Il giovane Garibaldi
Bento Gonçalvez
Judas' Kiss
Quinto Licinio
A Time of Destiny
Jorge Larraneta
La Lola se va a los puertos
Don Diego
Legacy of the Incas
Gambusino
Simon Bolivar
José Antonio Del Llano
El hombre de la isla
Lorenzo 'El Moro'
Sonatas
Marqués Javier de Bradomín
Victòria! La gran aventura d'un poble
Coronel Márquez
Mathias Sandorf
Frédéric de Rotenbourg
La vieja música
Domingo Ferreiro
L'uomo dai calzoni corti
Mario
La colonna infame
Giacomo Mora - il barbiere
Revenge
Narrator (voice) (uncredited)
Counselor at Crime
Vincent Garofalo
On Earth as It Is in Heaven
San Pedro
Coarse Salt
Gabino
Epilogue
Rocabruno
Juncal
José Álvarez "Juncal"
The Big Hit
Michel Arland
El apartamento de la tentación
Hombre que se cruza con Julieta (uncredited)
Los zancos
Manuel
All Is Possible in Granada
Fernando Ortega
At Five in the Afternoon
Juan Reyes
Saranno uomini
Giacomo
Io sono mia
Padre di Orio
La novia de medianoche
Wenceslao Corredoira
Camino del Rocío
José Antonio
Murió hace quince años
Diego
Whom God Forgives
Juan Cuenca
La gran mentira
César Neira
Summer Night
Bernardo
Divine
Papá Basilio
Revelation
Sergio Gresky
The Rebel
Tony
Radio Stories
Gabriel
Spain Again
Reportero
The Witching Hour
Cesar
Weeping for a Bandit
José María 'El Tempranillo'
The Guerrilla
El Cabrero (The Shepherd)
Tiempo de silencio
Muecas
Sor Intrépida
Tomás
The Challenges
Carlos
The Lost Paradise
El político anciano
I Was a Parish Priest
Martín
Scent of a Crime
Coronel Olvera
El canto del gallo
Padre Miller
The Lame Pigeon
Tío Ricardo
María Morena
El Sevillano
Le soldat Laforêt
Paco
Luna de sangre
Pedro Alvareda
La leyenda del alcalde de Zalamea
Pedro Crespo, Alcalde de Zalamea
Currito de la Cruz
Manuel Carmona
Torquemada
Torquemada
La Storia
Remo
Imágenes perdidas
Himself - Narrator
I tromboni di Fra' Diavolo
Fra Diavolo
Death Will Have Your Eyes
The Blackmailer
Laia
Dormir Y Ligar: Todo Es Empezar
Self (uncredited)
N.P. - The Secret
Ingegnere N.P.
The Hand in the Trap
Cristóbal Archaval
Crooks
Ginés Jiménez Valera
After the Deluge
Pedro
Blanca's Weddings
Antonio
Hijo de hombre
La otra imagen
Victòria! 3: El seny i la rauxa
Coronel Márquez
Doubt
Rafael Figueroa
Divine Words
Pedro Gailo
La peccatrice
Turco
The Female: Seventy Times Seven
Pascual
La taberna fantástica
Rogelio
The Man Who Lost His Shadow
Antonio
Speed Driver
Esposito
Reborn
Giacomo
The Miller's Saucy Wife
Cristóbal Paterna
Fight to the Death
Comisario Emilio Mendoza
El disputado voto del señor Cayo
Señor Cayo
Marbella
Juan
El crimen de Pepe Conde
The Reunion
Alberto
Two Men in Town
Superintendente
Goya: A Story of Solitude
Goya
Little Miracles
Don Francisco
Nada menos que todo un hombre
Alejandro Gómez
The Wide Blue Road
Salvatore
The Tempter
Bishop Marquez
Tormento
Agustín Caballero
El buscón
Mata
La rueda de la vida
Bronquista de pelea en salón (uncredited)
Alhucemas
Tostado (uncredited)
Baroque
El Hispano
Hoy como ayer
Ramón
Victòria! 2: La disbauxa del 17
Coronel Márquez
Oscuros sueños de agosto
Julio
El hermano bastardo de Dios
Peixe-Lua
Tio Nini
El gran secreto
Domingo
La noche y el alba
Pedro
The Revolution on Two Horses
Zio Henrique
Divertimento
Hay un camino a la derecha
Miguel
Planet Venus
Party chauffer
Lázaro de Tormes
El Ciego
España insólita
(voice)
Buñuel
Self
Les Anges exterminés
The Devil Also Cries
Tomás
The Other Woman
Zaylor
The Other
Il mistero del panino assassino
Arno dei conti Vincini
Nights of Constantinople
Our Father
Abel
Un delitto
Perseguidos
Ni contigo ni sin ti
Scapegoat
Comisario Cárdenas
Just Run!
Don Vicente
Bohemian Nights
Max Estrella
Don Juan Tenorio
Don Juan Tenorio
Felicidades, Tovarich
Abuelo
Water Easy Reach
The Long Vacations of '36
Teacher
Zero/infinito
(voice)
Intimidad de los parques
Héctor
María Rosa
Trío de damas
Alberto Sáinz Robledo
The City of World
Matteo
Diez fusiles esperan
José Iribarren
Cuenca
Narrator (voice)
Emilia... parada y fonda
Wages of Fear
Nilo
Cavalcata selvaggia
The Big Black Sow
Il Medico
Azahares rojos
Arturo Gómez Mancera
The Dead Man
Azevedo Bandeira
Autopsia de un criminal
Carlos
Futuro Imperfecto
Ciao Cialtroni!
Fra' Giovanni
Diario Spagnolo
Él mismo
Manuel, le fils emprunté
Juan Alvarez
María Antonia "La Caramba"
Salzillo
Salzillo