Fortunio Bonanova
Date of birth: 1895-01-13
Place of birth: Palma de Mallorca, Mallorca, Balearic Islands, Spain
Known for: Acting
Also known as: Josep Lluís Moll
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.
Movie Credits
Citizen Kane
1941-04-17
Newspaper magnate Charles Foster Kane is taken from his mother as a boy and made the ward of a rich
Double Indemnity
1944-07-06
A seductive housewife draws an insurance salesman into a plot of adultery and crime to collect on he
A Yank in the R.A.F.
1941-09-26
An American pilot impulsively joins His Majesty's Royal Air Force in Britain in an attempt to impres
Second Chance
1953-07-18
A prize-fighting boxer with a lethal right punch falls for a gangster's moll on the run in Mexico.
An Affair to Remember
1957-07-11
A couple falls in love and agrees to meet in six months at the Empire State Building - but will it h
Adventures of Don Juan
1948-12-24
Spanish Lothario Don Juan, the legendary lover and adventurer returns to Spain following a scandal a
Whirlpool
1950-01-13
The wife of a psychoanalyst falls prey to a devious quack hypnotist when he discovers she is an habi
New York Confidential
1955-02-15
Story follows the rise and subsequent fall of the notorious head of a New York crime family, who dec
Five Graves to Cairo
1943-05-26
The British Army, retreating ahead of victorious Rommel, leaves a lone survivor on the Egyptian bord
The Fugitive
1947-11-11
Anti-Catholic and anti-cleric policies in the Mexican state of Tabasco lead the revolutionary govern
Thunder Bay
1953-05-21
Shrimpers and oilmen clash when an ambitious wildcatter begins constructing an off-shore oilrig.
Romance on the High Seas
1948-06-25
Georgia Garrett is sent by jealous wife Elvira Kent on an ocean cruise to masquerade as herself whil
Moon Over Miami
1941-07-04
After losing nearly all of an inheritance to taxes, sisters Kay and Barbara Latimer, waitresses at a
Down Argentine Way
1940-10-11
The story—in which an American heiress on holiday in South America falls in love with an Argentine h
Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves
1944-01-14
Orphaned as a young child and adopted by a band of notorious thieves, now-grown Ali Baba sets out to
Fiesta
1947-06-12
When a matador leaves town to focus on his music, his twin sister takes on his identity in the bullf
The Red Dragon
1945-08-01
Chan is faced with suspects in a stolen atomic bomb formula case, that are being killed with bullets
Mrs. Parkington
1944-10-12
In this family saga, Mrs. Parkington recounts the story of her life, beginning as a hotel maid in fr
Larceny, Inc.
1942-04-24
Three ex-cons buy a luggage shop to tunnel into the bank vault next door. But despite all they can d
The Moon Is Blue
1953-07-08
Two aging playboys are both after the same attractive young woman, but she fends them off by claimin
September Affair
1950-10-18
An industrialist and a pianist meet on a trip and fall in love. Through a quirk of fate, they are re
Nancy Goes to Rio
1950-03-10
Mother and daughter compete over same singing role and, unbeknownst to each other, the same man.
The Kneeling Goddess
1947-08-13
Antonio, a millionaire, gifts his wife a statue of a naked, kneeling woman for their wedding anniver
The Saga of Hemp Brown
1958-10-01
Ex-army sergeant Jed Givens and his gang rob an army payroll shipment led by Lt. Hemp Brown. Givens
Tropic Holiday
1938-06-29
A screenwriter falls in love with a Mexican woman while searching for a story line south of the bord
Man Alive
1945-11-16
A reportedly dead man haunts his wife and her boyfriend.
So This Is Love
1953-07-15
Film biography of opera star Grace Moore, released in 1953.
Four Jacks and a Jill
1942-01-23
Karanina "Nina" Novak, is befriended by Nifty, the leader of a four-piece orchestra, and in return,
With This Ring
1954-01-01
Dramatised promotional film for the Miller Brewing Company.
That Night in Rio
1941-04-11
An entertainer in Rio impersonates a wealthy aristocrat. When the aristocrat's wife asks him to carr
Hit the Hay
1945-11-29
An unsophisticated farm girl pursues a career as an opera singer.
Where Do We Go from Here?
1945-05-23
Bill wants to join the Army, but he's 4F so he asks a wizard to help him, but the wizard has slight
Bulldog Drummond in Africa
1938-08-05
Drummond has to leave for Morocco on his wedding day with his fiancee and trusted friends to rescue
The Girl on The Roof
1953-12-16
A comedy of manners, the film centers on virtuous actress Patty O'Neill, who meets playboy architect
I Was an Adventuress
1940-05-10
Posing as the fabulously glamorous Countess Tanya Vronsky, a poor young ballet dancer and her two ac
Blood and Sand
1941-05-30
Bullfighter Juan Gallardo falls for socialite Dona Sol, turning from the faithful Carmen who neverth
Careless Lady
1932-04-02
Innocent Sally Brown thinks men are only attracted to experienced women, so she poses as the wife of
Girl Trouble
1942-10-09
A South American in New York rents the apartment of a socialite who pretends to be his maid.
Dixie
1943-06-23
A young songwriter leaves his Kentucky home to try to make it in New Orleans. Eventually he winds up
Pepita Jimenez
1946-02-22
On March 22, four days after returning to his home in Andalusia, Luis de Vargas writes the first of
Angel on the Amazon
1948-11-01
An expedition exploring the Amazon jungle comes across a jungle goddess who lives among the animals
My Best Gal
1944-03-28
A girl from a show-business family seeks a backer for her boyfriend's musical.
Brazil
1944-11-30
Brazil is perhaps the best of the handful of US films made by singing sensation Tito Guizar. In typi
Going My Way
1944-01-01
Youthful Father Chuck O'Malley led a colorful life of sports, song, and romance before joining the R
Jaguar
1956-01-19
Oil explorers suspect a South American jungle boy of murder.
The Sultan's Daughter
1943-12-16
A sultan's lovely daughter finds herself courted by a handsome American.
The Mark of Zorro
1940-11-08
In 1820 Spain, the son of a California nobleman comes home to find his native land under a villainou
For Whom the Bell Tolls
1943-07-12
Spain in the 1930s is the place to be for a man of action like Robert Jordan. There is a civil war g
A Successful Calamity
1932-09-17
Henry Wilton is an elderly millionaire saddled with his selfish young second wife Emmy 'Sweetie' Wil
Bad Men of Tombstone
1949-01-21
A marshal goes up against a collection of vicious outlaws terrorizing his own.
Conquest of Cochise
1953-09-01
A cavalry officer tries to keep a lid on a volatile situation when Indian leader Cochise is being pr
Thunder in the Sun
1959-04-08
A band of Basque immigrants treks through the Old West toward California, where they hope to put dow
Don Juan Tenorio
1922-10-26
Don Juan Tenorio makes a bet with a friend as to which of them will commit more outrages in a year.
El carnaval del diablo
1936-12-01
Spanish-language version of The Devil on Horseback (1936).
Unfinished Business
1941-08-27
Starting with a cruel joke – a couple of callow men make a bet that one of them can seduce the woman
Obliging Young Lady
1942-04-01
A woman attempts to shelter a young girl from the publicity surrounding her socialite parents' divor
Two Latins from Manhattan
1941-10-02
Joan Daley, a New York booking/press agent, attempts to recruit two local stand-ins, Jinx Terry and
La pícara Susana
1945-05-31
Socialist librarian gets mixed up in the family life of a spoiled rich girl and her screwball family
Romance in the Dark
1938-03-24
A baritone aids a young servant in making her dream of singing professionally come true.
Havana Rose
1951-09-15
Ambassador Rico DeMarco is in Washington trying to raise a five-million dollar loan for his country,
Poderoso caballero
1935-01-01
A Bell for Adano
1945-06-21
Major Joppolo and his men are assigned to restore order to the war-torn Italian town of Adano. He ha
Kiss Me Deadly
1955-04-28
One evening, Hammer gives a ride to Christina, an attractive hitchhiker on a lonely country road, wh
Death Whistles the Blues
1964-07-04
Vogel, an important trafficker, betrayed two of his accomplices, Castro and Smith. The first was sho
Mr. and Mrs. North
1942-01-23
Married sleuths (Gracie Allen, William Post Jr.) find a corpse in their closet and round up suspects
The Running Man
1963-10-01
An Englishman with a grudge against an insurance company for a disallowed claim fakes his own death
The Black Swan
1942-12-04
When notorious pirate Henry Morgan is made governor of Jamaica, he enlists the help of some of his f
Pacto con el Diablo (o el socio, Mr. Davis)
1929-01-01
Juan is summoned by Goldenberg to offer him a job in the cheap business. To get away from him, Pardo
The Ballad of Hector the Stowaway Dog
1964-01-05
Hector, the dog of an officer of the merchant navy, wanders during a stopover in Lisbon. Captured by
Las cuatro plumas
1928-12-22
Venezuelan adaptation of The Four Featehr by A.E.W. Mason. A story of courage and redemption set in
Monsieur Beaucaire
1946-09-04
A bumbling barber in the court of King Louis XV becomes engaged in political intrigue when he masque
Rose of Santa Rosa
1947-12-25
Angry because his father, Don Manuel Ortega, had arranged a marriage with a girl he has never met, D