Fernando Rey
About
Biography
Filmography
Family & Companions
Notes
He was awarded a Fine Arts Gold Medal by the Spanish Ministry of Culture in 1982.
He was knighted of Arts and Letters Awarded in 1986.
Biography
Dapper, durable international star, a leading man in his native Spain who played prominent roles in a wide variety of European and American features. An architecture student when the Spanish Civil War broke out, Rey saw his father, who fought for the Loyalists against Franco, sentenced to death (the sentence was later suspended). He also saw his family's wealth dwindle away and then became involved with the fighting as well. Needing money, Rey drifted into film work as an extra and kept busy dubbing voices from foreign films into Spanish, in several films as the voice of Laurence Olivier. Getting acting roles in the mid-1940s, the actor enjoyed success the following decade, performing for such leading Spanish directors as Juan Antonio Bardem and Luis Berlanga.
1961 marked a turning point in Rey's career when he made his first film for the iconoclastic and internationally renowned Luis Bunuel; the result was one of the finest films of the actor's career, "Viridiana" (1961). As the dense but somewhat nasty and always lustful uncle, Don Jaime, Rey enjoyed one of his best-remembered roles, relentlessly pursuing the eponymous heroine, a novice nun. Rey eventually racked up more than 150 feature credits, working for directors including Orson Welles ("Chimes at Midnight" 1966, excellent as Northumberland), Maurice Cloche ("The Viscount" 1967), Alberto Lattuada ("Bianco, Rosso e../White Red and.." 1971), Lina Wertmuller ("Seven Beauties" 1975), Vincente Minnelli ("A Matter of Time" 1976), Robert Altman ("Quintet" 1979), and Stephen Frears ("The Hit" 1984). Rey's work in Carlos Saura's "Elisa, mia vida" (1977) won him best actor honors at Cannes.
Usually sporting his trademark goatee, Rey possessed an aristocratic dignity which suited roles from statesmen to priests and made him ideal for historical sagas; one of his last films was Ridley Scott's misfire Columbus biopic, "1492: The Conquest of Paradise" (1992) and that same year, Rey enjoyed considerable acclaim in a Spanish TV miniseries as Don Quixote. In features Rey often portrayed urbane, cynical men weary of life. He reunited with Bunuel for three more films in the 70s, in which the witty master director would exploit Rey's expressive deadpan in roles as corrupt or dirty old men. He again corrupted a young woman (Catherine Deneuve) in the pensive yet deliciously perverse "Tristana" (1970), brought both class and wickedness to his ambassador in his award-winning performance in the witty "The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie" (1972) and again endured sexual frustration as he pursued a woman (played by two different actresses) in Bunuel's last film, "That Obscure Object of Desire" (1977). American audiences, however, probably still remember Rey best as the crafty drug lord Charnier in "The French Connection" (1971) and its 1975 sequel.
Filmography
Cast (Feature Film)
Misc. Crew (Feature Film)
Cast (TV Mini-Series)
Life Events
1944
Film acting debut in "Eugenia de Montijo"
1954
Acted in the US Production, "The Siege"
1961
First film with director Luis Bunuel, "Viridiana"
1971
Played best-known English-language film role, that of druglord Alain Charnier in "The French Connection"
1977
Last film with Bunuel, "That Obscure Object of Desire"
1977
Played Gaspar on the TV miniseries, "Jesus of Nazareth"
1985
Played Seneca on the TV miniseries sequel to "Jesus of Nazareth", "A.D." (Rey's role in this miniseries was unrelated to the one he played in the earlier program)
1989
Last major U.S. TV work, playing Sir Edward Hawk on the TNT historical miniseries, "Captain Cook"
1992
Starred as Don Quixote in a prestigious, made for Spanish TV series which was also released theatrically as "El Quijote, Parts 1 and 2"
1994
Last film, "Al Otro Lado del Tunel/At the Other End of the Tunnel"
Videos
Movie Clip
Trailer
Family
Companions
Bibliography
Notes
He was awarded a Fine Arts Gold Medal by the Spanish Ministry of Culture in 1982.
He was knighted of Arts and Letters Awarded in 1986.
He was president of the Spanish Academy of Cinematographic Arts and Sciences in his later years.
