Acting · Palma de Mallorca, Mallorca, Balearic Islands, Spain · Born January 13, 1895
Fortunio Bonanova, pseudonym of Josep Lluís Moll, (13 January 1895 – 2 April 1969) was a Spanish baritone singer and a film, theater, and television actor. He occasionally worked as a producer and director. According to Lluis Fàbregas Cuixart, the pseudonym Fortunio Bonanova referred to his desire to seek fortune, and his love of the Bonanova neighborhood in his native Palma. As a young man, living under his birthname, he was a professional telegraph operator. He studied music with the Italian Giovachini. In 1921, he debuted as a singer in Tannhäuser, at the Teatre Principal in Palma. That year, along with a group of Majorcan intellectuals and Jorge Luis Borges (who was briefly living in Majorca with his parents and sister), he signed the Ultraist Manifesto, using the name Fortunio Bonanova. Also in 1921, he appeared in a silent film of Don Juan Tenorio by the brothers Baños, which was shown the following year in New York City and Hollywood. He later directed his own Don Juan in 1924. In 1927, he acted in Love of Sunya, directed by Albert Parker and starring Gloria Swanson. In 1932 he had small parts in Hollywood productions featuring Joan Bennett and Mary Astor. In the same period, he appeared in New York in several operas as well as the zarzuelas La Canción del Olvido ("The song of forgetting"), La Duquesa del Tabarín ("The Duchess of Tabarín"), Los Gavilanes, and La Montería. In 1934, he returned to Spain, where he had a major role in the film El Desaparecido ("The disappeared one") written and directed by Antonio Graciani. In 1935 he acted and sang in the film Poderoso Caballero ("A Big Guy"), directed by Màximo Nossik. In 1936, with the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, he returned to the United States, where he played the role of Captain Bill in a film called Capitán Tormenta, directed by Jules Bernhardt. A sequence of increasingly larger acting and singing roles mostly in English-language films followed, especially after 1940. Among his roles were Signor Matiste, Susan Alexander Kane's opera coach in Citizen Kane (1941); General Sebastiano in Five Graves to Cairo (1943); Don Miguel in The Black Swan (1942); Fernando in For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943); Sam Garlopis in Double Indemnity (1944); and a singing Christopher Columbus in Where Do We Go From Here?. He continued for the next several decades in a miscellany of character roles.
MovieDeath Whistles the Blues
1964
as Comisario Fenton
MovieThe Ballad of Hector the Stowaway Dog
1964
as Inspector
MovieThe Running Man
1963
as Spanish Bank Manager
MovieThunder in the Sun
1959
as Fernando Christophe
TV77 Sunset Strip
1958
as Santos
MovieThe Saga of Hemp Brown
1958
as Serge Bolanos
MovieAn Affair to Remember
1957
as Courbet
TVThe Count of Monte Cristo
1956
MovieJaguar
1956
as Francisco Servente
MovieKiss Me Deadly
1955
as Carmen Trivago
MovieNew York Confidential
1955
as Senor
TVDecember Bride
1954
MovieWith This Ring
1954
as Senor Corelli, Opera Singer
MovieThe Girl on The Roof
1953
as TV host
MovieConquest of Cochise
1953
as Mexican Minister
MovieSecond Chance
1953
as Mandy, hotel owner
MovieSo This Is Love
1953
as Dr. Marafioti
MovieThe Moon Is Blue
1953
as Television Performer
MovieThunder Bay
1953
as Sheriff Antoine Chighizola
TVGeneral Electric Theater
1953
TVThe Abbott and Costello Show
1952
as Uncle Bozzo
TVI Love Lucy
1951
as Professor
MovieHavana Rose
1951
as Ambassador DeMarco
TVRacket Squad
1951
MovieSeptember Affair
1950
as Grazzi
MovieNancy Goes to Rio
1950
as Ricardo Domingos
MovieWhirlpool
1950
as Feruccio di Ravallo
MovieBad Men of Tombstone
1949
as John Mingo
MovieAdventures of Don Juan
1948
as Don Serafino Lopez
MovieAngel on the Amazon
1948
as Sebastian Ortega
MovieRomance on the High Seas
1948
as Plinio
MovieRose of Santa Rosa
1947
as Don Manuel Ortega
MovieThe Fugitive
1947
as The Governor's Cousin
MovieThe Kneeling Goddess
1947
MovieFiesta
1947
as Antonio Morales
MovieMonsieur Beaucaire
1946
as Don Carlos
MoviePepita Jiménez
1946
as Don Pedro Vargas
Hit the Hay
1945
as Mario Alvini
MovieMan Alive
1945
as Prof. Zorado
MovieThe Red Dragon
1945
as Insp. Luis Carvero
MovieA Bell for Adano
1945
as Gargano - Chief of Police
MovieLa pícara Susana
1945
MovieWhere Do We Go from Here?
1945
as Christopher Columbus
MovieBrazil
1944
as Senor Renaldo Da Silva
MovieMrs. Parkington
1944
as Signor Cellini
MovieDouble Indemnity
1944
as Sam Garlopis
MovieMy Best Gal
1944
as Charlie
MovieAli Baba and the Forty Thieves
1944
as Old Baba
MovieGoing My Way
1944
as Tomaso Bozanni
MovieThe Sultan's Daughter
1943
as Kuda
MovieFor Whom the Bell Tolls
1943
as Fernando
MovieDixie
1943
as Waiter
MovieFive Graves to Cairo
1943
as Gen. Sebastiano
MovieThe Black Swan
1942
as Don Miguel (uncredited)
MovieGirl Trouble
1942
as Simon Cordoba
MovieLarceny, Inc.
1942
as Anton Copoulos
MovieObliging Young Lady
1942
as Chef
MovieFour Jacks and a Jill
1942
as Mike - Nightclub Owner (uncredited)
MovieMr. and Mrs. North
1942
as Buano
MovieTwo Latins from Manhattan
1941
as Armando Rivero
MovieA Yank in the R.A.F.
1941
as Louie - Headwaiter
MovieUnfinished Business
1941
as Impresario
MovieMoon Over Miami
1941
as Mr. Pretto, the Hotel Manager
MovieBlood and Sand
1941
as Pedro Espinosa
MovieCitizen Kane
1941
as Signor Matiste
MovieThat Night in Rio
1941
as Pereira, the Headwaiter
MovieThe Mark of Zorro
1940
as Sentry (uncredited)
MovieDown Argentine Way
1940
as Hotel Manager
MovieI Was an Adventuress
1940
as Orchestra Leader
MovieBulldog Drummond in Africa
1938
as African Police Corporal
MovieTropic Holiday
1938
as Barrera
MovieRomance in the Dark
1938
as Tenor
MovieEl carnaval del diablo
1936
MoviePoderoso caballero
1935
MovieEl desaparecido
1934
MovieA Successful Calamity
1932
as Pietro Rafaelo
MovieCareless Lady
1932
as Rodriguez
MoviePacto con el Diablo (o el socio, Mr. Davis)
1929
Las cuatro plumas
1928
MovieDon Juan Tenorio
1922
as Don Juan Tenorio
