José Ferrer

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José Vicente Ferrer de Otero y Cintrón (born January 8, 1912 in Santurce , Puerto Rico , † January 26, 1992 in Coral Gables , Florida ) was an American actor and director . He won the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1951 for his role as Cyrano de Bergerac in The Last Musketeer . In his later film career, Ferrer was used particularly often as a villain.

Life

The parents were from Spain and lived in Puerto Rico as naturalized American citizens. According to the wishes of the father, a lawyer and landowner, the son José should become a concert pianist. But José Ferrer studied architecture, music and composition at Princeton University .

Ferrer had initially worked as an actor and director at the theater when he decided on the film. For his debut with Ingrid Bergman in Johanna von Orleans (1948) Ferrer was nominated for an Oscar for best supporting actor. In 1950 Ferrer won an Oscar for his portrayal of the writer Cyrano de Bergerac , directed by Michael Gordon . Ferrer had played the title role on stage in 1946 and on television in 1949. Ferrer transferred his serious and progressive conception of roles from his theatrical time to his acting performance in film.

In 1952 Ferrer won three Tony Awards for directing the plays The Shrike , Stalag 17 and The Fourposter, as well as another Tony Award for his acting performance in The Shrike .

In the same year Ferrer played the French painter Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec in John Huston's Oscar-nominated Moulin Rouge . In 1954, Ferrer took on the role of defense attorney Barney Greenwald in the film The Caine Was Her Fate . From 1955 on, Ferrer also directed a number of films in which he mostly worked as an actor. This includes the film I Accuse (1958) - a new version of the Dreyfus affair .

He had other major screen appearances in David Leans Lawrence of Arabia (1962), the Bible epic The Greatest Story of All Time (1965), Woody Allen's A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy (1982) and in David Lynch's The Desert Planet (1984). In Stanley Kramer's socially critical consideration of an Atlantic crossing in a passenger steamer Das Narrenschiff (1965) with an illustrious mix of passengers, almost all of whom are played by well-known actors, he proves his versatility and plays an enthusiastic supporter of Adolf Hitler and his ideology.

José Ferrer, who spoke perfect French, Italian and German in addition to Spanish and English, was married four times, including to Uta Hagen . The third marriage to actress Rosemary Clooney had five children. The oldest child was the actor Miguel Ferrer († 2017). George Clooney is a nephew of Rosemary Clooney. His son Gabriel is married to the singer Debby Boone , the daughter Pat Boones . The daughter of the two is the actress Tessa Ferrer . There is no relationship with the American actor Mel Ferrer .

In the episode Return from the Dead of the Magnum series (season 1, episode 10), he can be seen with his son Miguel. He embodies the young role his father plays as an old man.

Ferrer died of colon cancer in Coral Gables, Florida, in 1992, eighteen days after his 80th birthday, and was buried in the Santa Maria Magdalena de Pazzis Cemetery in Old San Juan, his native Puerto Rico.

Filmography (selection)

actor

Director

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Liz-Anne Bawden, Wolfram Tichy (ed.): Filmlexikon. Rowohlt, Reinbek near Hamburg 1978, Lemma Ferrer, José.
personal data
SURNAME Ferrer, José
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Ferrer de Otero y Cintron, José Vicente (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Puerto Rican actor and director
DATE OF BIRTH January 8, 1912
PLACE OF BIRTH Santurce , Puerto Rico
DATE OF DEATH January 26, 1992
Place of death Coral Gables , Florida, United States