Fortunio Bonanova
Born
January 13, 1895
Died
April 2, 1969 (74 years old)
Known For
Acting
Place of Birth
Palma de Mallorca, Mallorca, Balearic Islands, Spain
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.
Death Whistles the Blues
Comisario Fenton
1964
The Ballad of Hector the Stowaway Dog
Inspector
1964
The Running Man
Spanish Bank Manager
1963
Thunder in the Sun
Fernando Christophe
1959
77 Sunset Strip
Santos · (1 episode)
1958
The Saga of Hemp Brown
Serge Bolanos
1958
An Affair to Remember
Courbet
1957
The Count of Monte Cristo
(3 episodes)
1956
Jaguar
Francisco Servente
1956
Kiss Me Deadly
Carmen Trivago
1955
New York Confidential
Senor
1955
December Bride
(1 episode)
1954
With This Ring
Senor Corelli, Opera Singer
1954
The Girl on The Roof
TV host
1953
Conquest of Cochise
Mexican Minister
1953
Second Chance
Mandy, hotel owner
1953
So This Is Love
Dr. Marafioti
1953
The Moon Is Blue
Television Performer
1953
Thunder Bay
Sheriff Antoine Chighizola
1953
General Electric Theater
(1 episode)
1953
The Abbott and Costello Show
Uncle Bozzo · (1 episode)
1952
The Abbott and Costello Show
Prof. Roberto · (1 episode)
1952
I Love Lucy
Professor · (1 episode)
1951
Havana Rose
Ambassador DeMarco
1951
Racket Squad
(1 episode)
1951
September Affair
Grazzi
1950
Nancy Goes to Rio
Ricardo Domingos
1950
Whirlpool
Feruccio di Ravallo
1950
Bad Men of Tombstone
John Mingo
1949
Adventures of Don Juan
Don Serafino Lopez
1948
Angel on the Amazon
Sebastian Ortega
1948
Romance on the High Seas
Plinio
1948
The Fugitive
The Governor's Cousin
1947
The Kneeling Goddess
1947
Fiesta
Antonio Morales
1947
Monsieur Beaucaire
Don Carlos
1946
Pepita Jimenez
Don Pedro Vargas
1946
Hit the Hay
Mario Alvini
1945
Man Alive
Prof. Zorado
1945
The Red Dragon
Insp. Luis Carvero
1945
A Bell for Adano
Gargano - Chief of Police
1945
La pícara Susana
1945
Where Do We Go from Here?
Christopher Columbus
1945
Brazil
Senor Renaldo Da Silva
1944
Mrs. Parkington
Signor Cellini
1944
Double Indemnity
Sam Garlopis
1944
My Best Gal
Charlie
1944
Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves
Old Baba
1944
Going My Way
Tomaso Bozanni
1944
The Sultan's Daughter
Kuda
1943
For Whom the Bell Tolls
Fernando
1943
Dixie
Waiter
1943
Five Graves to Cairo
Gen. Sebastiano
1943
The Black Swan
Don Miguel (uncredited)
1942
Girl Trouble
Simon Cordoba
1942
Larceny, Inc.
Anton Copoulos
1942
Obliging Young Lady
Chef
1942
Four Jacks and a Jill
Mike - Nightclub Owner (uncredited)
1942
Mr. and Mrs. North
Buano
1942
Two Latins from Manhattan
Armando Rivero
1941
A Yank in the R.A.F.
Louie - Headwaiter
1941
Unfinished Business
Impresario
1941
Moon Over Miami
Mr. Pretto, the Hotel Manager
1941
Blood and Sand
Pedro Espinosa
1941
Citizen Kane
Signor Matiste
1941
That Night in Rio
Pereira, the Headwaiter
1941
The Mark of Zorro
Sentry (uncredited)
1940
Down Argentine Way
Hotel Manager
1940
I Was an Adventuress
Orchestra Leader
1940
Bulldog Drummond in Africa
African Police Corporal
1938
Tropic Holiday
Barrera
1938
Romance in the Dark
Tenor
1938
El carnaval del diablo
1936
Poderoso caballero
1935
A Successful Calamity
Pietro Rafaelo
1932
Careless Lady
Rodriguez
1932
Pacto con el Diablo (o el socio, Mr. Davis)
1929
Las cuatro plumas
1928
Don Juan Tenorio
Don Juan Tenorio
1922