Born on March 8, 1926 in Águilas, a small town in the south of Spain, Francisco Rabal immigrated to Madrid with his family due to the Civil War that broke out in 1936. Rabal, who was forced to work as a street vendor and work in a chocolate factory at a young age, left school when he was thirteen and started working as an electrician at Estudios Chamartín.
Alonso Damaso and his acquaintances encouraged him to try a chance on stage, and Rabal stepped into the industry by working as an extra for a while. When she started taking roles in well-known theater companies such as Lope de Vega and María Guerrero, she met Asunción Balaguer; The two were married for many years and their children include actress Teresa Rabal.
He did not change his name and continued to use "Francisco Rabal" as his stage name, but the audience called him "Paco Rabal"; This nickname also became widespread over time.
While he was working as an extra in films in the mid-1940s, he also transitioned to dialogue roles over time. Working with Spanish director Luis Buñuel was a turning point in Rabal's career; She appeared in films such as Nazarín (1959), Viridiana (1961) and Gündüz Güzeli (1966). In another interesting anecdote, William Friedkin wanted to offer Rabal the role of the villain in the 1971 film The French Connection, but he could not remember the actor's name and chose Fernando Rey by mistake; Shortly before this incident, Rabal had also worked with Rey on Viridiana.
Rabal also took part in projects with important directors such as Gillo Pontecorvo, Michelangelo Antonioni, Luchino Visconti, Valerio Zurlini, Jacques Rivette and Alberto Lattuada, and shot films in countries such as France, Italy and Mexico.
Rabal's most impressive performances occurred after the death of Francisco Franco in 1975. In the 1980s, he received critical acclaim in productions such as Los Santos Inocentes, El Disputado Voto del Señor Cayo and the television series Juncal; He won the Best Actor award at the Cannes Film Festival. In 1999, he received the Goya Award for his role as Goya in Carlos Saura's film Goya en Burdeos, and in the same year he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Murcia. He died due to illness on his way back to Bordeaux from the Montreal Film Festival on August 29, 2001.
Francisco Rabal was born on March 8, 1926 in Águilas, Murcia, Región de Murcia, Spain. He died on August 29, 2001.
Productions in which he took part
He took part in a total of 206 productions; 12 of the most well-known are listed.
- Day Beauty (1967) — Hyppolite
- Setting Sun (1962) — Riccardo
- The Price of Terror (1977) — Nilo
- Così come sei (1978) — Lorenzo
- Tie Me (1990) — Máximo Espejo
- Viridiana (1962) — Jorge
- Dagon (2001) — Ezequiel
- Pequeños milagros (1997) — Don Francisco
- María Rosa (1965)
- La Storia (1986) — Remo
- Si può mouse… amigo (1972) — Sheriff Franciscus
- Teresa de Jesús (1984) — Alonso
Production and imprint information was taken from TMDB.
