Manuel Alexandre Abaraca was born in Madrid, Spain on
November 11, 1917. He dropped out of law school to become an actor. Manuel
abandoned his studies and became a journalist at the outbreak of the Spanish
Civil War. During college he had attended elocution lessons at the Royal
Conservatory of Madrid, with the famous Carmen Seco, having as classmates
Fernando Fernan-Gomez, whose had become a close friend ever since, and Rafael
Alonso, with whom he intervened with at TEU functions. That was his foundation
for the subsequent practice of acting for the past seven decades, for which he
became one of the great supporting actors of Spanish film and television, where
he worked in over 300 films. Manuel was also well known as a popular theater
performer participating in hundreds of plays. He began his film career with an
appearance in “Dos cuentos para dos” directed by Luis Lucia in 1947 and then a
small role in “Bienvenido, Mister Marshall” (1950). During the first decades of
Spanish democracy he was one of the regular faces in the commercial cinema, but
from the late 1980s he worked assiduously working with such prominent directors
as José Luis Cuerda, Francisco Regueiro, Berlanga, José Luis or Manolo Sánchez
García Gutiérrez Aragón. Alexandre appeared in three Euro-westerns: “Zorro the
Avenger” (1962), “A Few Bullets More” (1967) and “The Return of El Coyote”
(1998).
On television he participated in various television
productions, as “Fortunata y Jacinta”, “Los ladrones van a la oficina”, “Siete
vidas”, “La venganza de don Mendo” His last television appearance was a
marvelous job in which he played the General Francisco Franco, Spanish head of
state for four decades, in the mini-series “20-N” by Roberto Bodegas.
Among his greatest hits on stage include his performance
in “My Fair Lady” (1983), “Bohemian Lights” (1984) and “Mother Courage and Her
Children” (1986). Alexandre received numerous awards throughout his life,
including the National Award for his work on “Placido”, the Film Critics Award,
the Screen Actors Union, and an honorary Goya for lifetime achievement.
Alexandre died on October 12, 2010 of cancer in Madrid.
Today we remember Manuel Alexandre on what would have
been his 95th birthday.
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