Spanish collectors card by I.G. Viladot, Barcelona. Image: Cifesa.
Spanish postcard. Fernando Rey and Amparito Rivelles in Si te hubieses casado conmigo / If You Had Married Me (Viktor Tourjansky, 1948).
A brilliant performance as a demotivated and doubtful actor
Fernando Rey was born Fernando Casado D'Arambillet in A Coruña, Spain, in 1917. He was the son of Captain Casado Veiga. Fernando studied architecture, but the Spanish Civil War interrupted his university studies. In 1936, he gained employment as an extra, which was the start of his film career. As his stage name, he chose Fernando Rey. He kept his first name but took his mother's second surname, Rey, a short surname with a clear meaning ('Rey' is Spanish for 'King').
Eight years later, he had his first speaking role as the Duke of Alba in Eugenia de Montijo (José López Rubio, 1944), starring Amparo Rivelles. Four years later, he played Felipe I el Hermoso, King of Spain, in the Spanish blockbuster Locura de amor / The Mad Queen (Juan de Orduña, 1948) with Aurora Bautista and Sara Montiel. This started a prolific career in film, radio, theatre, and television. Rey was also a great dubbing actor in Spanish television. His voice was considered intense and personal, and he became the narrator of important Spanish films including Luis García Berlanga's Bienvenido Mr. Marshall / Welcome Mr. Marshall! (1953) and Ladislao Vajda's Marcelino Pan y Vino / The Miracle of Marcelino (1955).
In 1992, he was the narrator of the re-dubbed version of Orson Welles' Don Quixote. In fact, Rey acted in four different film versions of Don Quixote in different roles, if one also counts the Welles version for which Rey supplied offscreen narration in the final scene. Fernando Rey's brilliant performance in the role of a demotivated and doubtful actor in Juan Antonio Bardem's Cómicos / Comedians (1954), was his first successful lead part. Paradoxically, as he saw himself as the real incarnation of the role, it plunged him into a professional depression, from which he did not emerge until he collaborated with Luis Buñuel several years later.
However, in the short term, Buñuel's disconcerting public remark on Rey's performance in another of Bardem's film, Sonatas (Juan Antonio Bardem, 1959), "I love how this actor plays a corpse", could only increase Rey's apprehensions. Nevertheless, eventually, Rey became Buñuel's preferred actor and closest friend. Rey's first international performance was in the French-Italian film Les bijoutiers du clair de lune / The Night Heaven Fell (Roger Vadim, 1958), with Stephen Boyd, Marina Vlady and Brigitte Bardot.
In 1959, Rey co-starred with Steve Reeves and Christine Kaufmann in the Italian sword and sandal film Gli ultimi giorni di Pompei / The Last Days of Pompeii (Mario Bonnard, 1959). Rey played in one of the first Euro-Westerns, Tierra brutal / The Savage Guns (Michael Carreras, 1961), starring Richard Basehart. When the popularity of this genre increased during the decade, he appeared in other Westerns, including the political Western Il prezzo del potere / The Price of Power (Tonino Valerii, 1969) with Giuliano Gemma, the bizarre cult classic Vamos a matar, compañeros / Compañeros (Sergio Corbucci, 1970) with Franco Nero and Tomas Milian, and two sequels of The Magnificent Seven, Return of the Seven (Burt Kennedy, 1966) and Guns of the Magnificent Seven (Paul Wendkos, 1969).
Spanish postcard.
A Spanish actor who had worked with Buñuel
Fernando Rey became internationally prominent with his work for Orson Welles and Luis Buñuel during the 1960s and 1970s. For Welles, Rey performed in two completed films, Campanadas a medianoche / Chimes at Midnight (Orson Welles, 1965) and Histoire immortelle / The Immortal Story (Orson Welles, 1968) with Jeanne Moreau. For Bunuel, Rey starred in Viridiana (1961), Tristana (1970) starring Catherine Deneuve, Le charme discret de la bourgeoisie / The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972) which received the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, and Cet obscur objet du désir / That Obscure Object of Desire (1977). The latter was nominated for another Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film and was also nominated for a Golden Globe in the same category, though the film failed to win either.
Rey also played memorably the French villain Alain Charnier in William Friedkin's The French Connection (1971) opposite Gene Hackman. Initially, Friedkin intended to cast Francisco Rabal as Charnier, but could not remember his name after seeing him in Luis Buñuel's Belle de jour (1967). He only knew the person he had in mind was a Spanish actor who had worked with Buñuel. Rey was hired after he flew to New York to be met by a surprised Friedkin. Rey's English and French were not perfect, but Friedkin discovered that Rabal spoke neither of them and opted to keep Rey, who reprised the role in the less successful sequel, French Connection II (John Frankenheimer, 1975).
During the 1970s and 1980s, Fernando Rey played in many international co-productions, some of his appearances being cameos. These films include Lewis Gilbert's The Adventurers (1970), Mauro Bolognini's Fatti di gente perbene / Drama of the Rich (1974), Vincente Minnelli's A Matter of Time (1976), Valerio Zurlini's Il deserto dei tartari / The Desert of the Tartars (1976), Robert Altman's Quintet (1979), J. Lee Thompson's Caboblanco (1980) and Frank Perry's Monsignor (1982). In Lina Wertmüller's Academy Award-nominated film, Pasqualino Settebellezze / Seven Beauties (1975), Rey played the role of Pedro the anarchist who, as a friend of the protagonist and fellow prisoner Pasqualino Settebellezze (Giancarlo Giannini), chooses a gruesome suicide, rather than spend another day in a Nazi concentration camp.
One of Rey's greater successes in these years was the Spanish drama Elisa, vida mía / Elisa, My Life (1977), with Geraldine Chaplin and written and directed by Carlos Saura. In later years, Rey preferred to work in Spain, with successes as Padre Nuestro / Our Father (Francisco Regueiro, 1985), El bosque animado / The Enchanted Forest (José Luis Cuerda, 1987) and Al otro lado del túnel / On the Far Side of the Tunnel (Jaime de Armiñán, 1992) as well as his portrayal of Don Quixote, alongside Alfredo Landa as Sancho Panza, in the memorable Mini-Series El Quijote de Miguel de Cervantes / Don Quijote de la Mancha (Manuel Gutiérrez Aragón, 1991) for the Spanish National TV. His last appearance on the screen was in a supporting role in the Spanish black comedy El cianuro ... ¿sólo o con leche? / Cyanide ... pure or with milk? (1994).
Many honours came to Fernando Rey in the twilight of his career, during the 1980s and 1990s. In 1971 Rey won the Best Actor Award in the San Sebastián International Film Festival, for his performance in Rafael Gil's La duda / Doubt, based, like Viridiana and Tristana, on a novel by Benito Pérez Galdós. Rey won the Best Actor Award at the 1977 Cannes Film Festival for his performance in Elisa, vida mía / Elisa, My Life (Carlos Saura, 1977). In 1988 he again won the Best Actor Award at the San Sebastián International Film Festival, this time for his performance in two films: Diario de invierno / Winter Diary (Francisco Regueiro, 1988) and El Aire de un Crimen / The Hint of a Crime (Antonio Isasi-Isasmendi, 1988). Fernando Rey was also awarded the gold medal of the Spanish Movie Arts and Sciences Academy. In 1960, Rey married the Argentine actress Mabel Karr. They had a son, Fernando Casado Campolongo. Fernando Rey died of bladder cancer in Madrid in 1994.
Chinese Postcard. Pascale Audran, Bulle Ogier, Delphine Seyrig, Fernando Rey, Paul Frankeur, and Jean-Pierre Cassel in Le charme discret de la bourgeoisie / The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (Luis Buñuel, 1973).
German postcard by Kunst und Ausstellungshalle der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Bonn. Photo: Stiftung Deutsche Kinemathek Berlin. Carole Bouquet and Fernando Rey in Cet obscur objet du désir / That Obscure Object of Desire (Luis Buñuel, 1977).
Sources: Jon C. Hopwood (IMDb), Wikipedia, and IMDb.
