José Ferrer
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| José Ferrer | |
|---|---|
 in the trailer for Crisis (1950) |
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| Born | José Vicente Ferrer de Otero y Cintrón January 8, 1909 Santurce, Puerto Rico |
| Died | January 26, 1992 (aged 83) Coral Gables, Florida, USA |
| Spouse(s) | Uta Hagen (1938-1948) Phyllis Hill (1948-1953) Rosemary Clooney (1953-1961, 1964-1967) Stella Magee (1992-1992) |
José Vicente Ferrer de Otero y Cintrón (January 8, 1909 – January 26, 1992), was a Puerto Rican award-winning and stage- and film director, and actor.
Contents |
[edit] Biography
[edit] Career
- Early stage acclaim
Ferrer was born in the Santurce district of San Juan, Puerto Rico. In 1933 he graduated from Princeton University, where he wrote a senior thesis titled French Naturalism and Pardo Bazán and was a member of the Princeton Triangle Club. Ferrer made his Broadway debut in 1935. In 1940, he played his first starring role on Broadway, the title role in Charley's Aunt — part of it in drag. He played Iago in Margaret Webster's 1943 Broadway production of Othello, starring Paul Robeson in the title role, Webster as Emilia, and Ferrer's wife at the time, Uta Hagen, as Desdemona. It became the longest-running production of a Shakespeare play staged in the U.S., a record it still holds. Then, in 1946, he played the title role in Edmond Rostand's Cyrano de Bergerac, a performance which won him a Tony Award.
- Radio
Among other radio roles, Ferrer starred as detective Philo Vance in a 1945 series of the same name.
- Oscars
Ferrer made his film debut with Ingrid Bergman in Joan of Arc in 1948, for which he received his first Academy Award nomination, for "Best Supporting Actor". Ferrer won an Academy Award as "Best Actor" for his portrayal of Cyrano de Bergerac in the 1955 film version of Cyrano de Bergerac, becoming the first Puerto Rican to win the award, only weeks after being subpoenaed to appear before the House Un-American Activities Committee as a suspected Communist, charges that Ferrer vehemently denied.
- Stage Director
In 1952 Ferrer won a Tony Award for directing three plays (The Shrike, Stalag 17, The Fourposter) in the same season and earned another for his performance in The Shrike. Additional Broadway directing credits include Twentieth Century, Carmelina, My Three Angels, and The Andersonville Trial.
Another Oscar nomination, and later work
Also in 1952, Ferrer portrayed French painter Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec in John Huston's Moulin Rouge, for which he was Oscar nominated for the third and last time. He portrayed the Reverend Davidson in 1953's Miss Sadie Thompson (a remake of Rain) opposite Rita Hayworth, Barney Greenwald, the embittered defense attorney, in 1954s The Caine Mutiny and operetta composer Sigmund Romberg in the MGM musical biopic Deep in My Heart. In 1955 Ferrer directed himself in the film version of The Shrike, with June Allyson. The Cockleshell Heroes followed a year later, along with The Great Man, both of which he also directed. In 1958 Ferrer directed and appeared in I Accuse! and The High Cost of Loving. Ferrer also directed, but did not appear in, Return to Peyton Place in 1961 and also the remake of State Fair in 1962.
In 1959 Ferrer directed the original stage production of Saul Levitt's The Andersonville Trial, about the trial following the revelation of conditions at the infamous Civil War prison. It was a hit and featured George C. Scott. He took over the direction of the troubled musical Juno from Vincent J. Donehue, who had himself taken over from Tony Richardson. The show folded after 16 performances and mixed-to extremely negative critical reaction. The show's commercial failure (along with his earlier flop, Oh, Captain!), was a considerable setback to Ferrer's directing career. Nor did the short-lived The Girl Who Came to Supper do much for his acting career.
In the midst of his film work, Ferrer would return to the stage every so often, and the most notable performance of his later stage career was as Miguel de Cervantes and his fictional creation Don Quixote in the hit musical Man of La Mancha. Ferrer took over the role from Richard Kiley in 1967, and subsequently went on tour with it in the first national company of the show.
Ferrer's other notable film roles include an evil hypnotist in Otto Preminger's Whirlpool, co-starring Gene Tierney (1949), the Turkish Bey who sexually molests Peter O'Toole in Lawrence of Arabia (1962 - he considered this to be his finest film performance), Herod Antipas in The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965), a budding Nazi in Ship of Fools, a pompous professor in Woody Allen's A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy (1982), the treacherous Professor Siletski in the 1983 remake of To Be or Not to Be, and Shaddam Corrino IV in Dune in 1984. However, in an interview given in the 1980s, he bemoaned the lack of good character parts for aging stars, and readily admitted that he now took on roles mostly for the money.
[edit] Later years
In 1980 he had a memorable role as future Justice Abe Fortas in the made-for-television film version of Anthony Lewis's Gideon's Trumpet, opposite Henry Fonda in an Emmy-nominated performance as Clarence Earl Gideon.
Ferrer, not usually known for regular roles in TV series, had a recurring role as Julia Duffy's insanely wealthy WASPy father on the popular Newhart television sitcom in the U.S. in the 1980s. He also had a recurring role as elegant and flamboyant attorney Reuben Marino on the soap opera Another World in the early 1980s. He narrated the very first episode of the popular 1964 sitcom Bewitched, in mock documentary style.
He also provided the voice of the evil Ben Haramed on the 1968 Rankin/Bass Christmas TV special The Little Drummer Boy.
[edit] Family
Ferrer had five children with singer-actress Rosemary Clooney: Miguel was born in 1955, Maria in 1956, Gabriel in 1957, Monsita in 1958, and Rafael in 1960. Clooney was Ferrer's third wife. The two were married in 1953, divorced in 1961, and remarried in 1964, only to be divorced again in 1967. Ferrer had previously been married to famed actress and acting teacher Uta Hagen (1938–1948), by whom he had a daughter, Leticia (Lettie), and actress Phyllis Hill (1948–1953). At the time of his death, Ferrer was married to Stella Magee, whom he married in the late sixties.
Ferrer was the uncle of actor George Clooney and the father-in-law of singer Debby Boone. José Ferrer died following a brief battle with colon cancer in Coral Gables, Florida at the age of 83. He was laid to rest in Santa Maria Magdalena de Pazzis Cemetery in Old San Juan.
[edit] Filmography
| Year | Film | Role | Other notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1948 | Joan of Arc | The Dauphin, Charles VII, later King of France | Nominated - Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor | |
| 1949 | Whirlpool | David Korvo | as Jose Ferrer | |
| 1950 | Cyrano de Bergerac | Cyrano de Bergerac | Academy Award for Best Actor; Golden Globe | |
| Crisis | Raoul Farrago | as Jose Ferrer | ||
| The Secret Fury | José | uncredited | ||
| 1952 | Moulin Rouge | Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec/The Comte de Toulouse-Lautrec | Nominated - Academy Award for Best Actor | |
| Anything Can Happen | Giorgi Papashvily | |||
| 1953 | Miss Sadie Thompson | Alfred Davidson | as Jose Ferrer | |
| 1954 | Deep in My Heart | Sigmund Romberg | ||
| The Caine Mutiny | Lt. Barney Greenwald | Nominated - BAFTA Award | ||
| 1955 | The Cockleshell Heroes | Major Stringer | as Jose Ferrer | |
| The Shrike | Jim Downs | |||
| 1956 | The Great Man | Joe Harris | ||
| 1958 | The High Cost of Loving | Jim 'Jimbo' Fry | ||
| I Accuse! | Capt. Alfred Dreyfus | |||
| 1961 | Return to Peyton Place | Voice of Mark Steele, Second Interviewer | uncredited | |
| Forbid Them Not | Narrator | voice | ||
| 1962 | Lawrence of Arabia | Turkish Bey | as Jose Ferrer | |
| 1963 | Verspätung in Marienborn | Cowan the Reporter | as Jose Ferrer | |
| Nine Hours to Rama | Supt. Gopal Das | |||
| 1964 | Cyrano et d'Artagnan | Cyrano de Bergerac | ||
| 1965 | Ship of Fools | Siegfried Rieber | ||
| The Greatest Story Ever Told | Herod Antipas | |||
| 1967 | Cervantes | Hassan Bey | ||
| Enter Laughing | Mr. Marlowe | as Jose Ferrer | ||
| 1975 | El Clan de los inmorales | Inspector Reed | ||
| 1976 | The Big Bus | Ironman | ||
| Forever Young, Forever Free | Father Alberto | |||
| Paco | Fermin Flores | |||
| Voyage of the Damned | Manuel Benitez | |||
| 1977 | The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover | Lionel McCoy | ||
| Who Has Seen the Wind | The Ben | |||
| The Sentinel | Priest of the Brotherhood | |||
| Crash! | Marc Denne | |||
| 1978 | The Swarm | Dr. Andrews | as Jose Ferrer | |
| Dracula's Dog | Inspector Branco | |||
| Fedora | Doctor Vando | |||
| 1979 | Natural Enemies | Harry Rosenthal | ||
| The Fifth Musketeer | Athos | |||
| A Life of Sin | Bishop | |||
| 1980 | The Big Brawl | Domenici | ||
| 1981 | Bloody Birthday | Doctor | ||
| 1982 | Blood Tide | Nereus | ||
| A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy | Leopold | as Jose Ferrer | ||
| 1983 | To Be or Not to Be | Prof. Siletski | ||
| The Being | Mayor Gordon Lane | |||
| 1984 | Dune | Padishah Emperor Shaddam IV | ||
| The Evil That Men Do | Dr. Hector Lomelin | |||
| 1987 | The Sun and the Moon | |||
| 1990 | Hired to Kill | Rallis | ||
| Old Explorers | Warner Watney | |||
| 1992 | Laam Gong juen ji faan fei jo fung wan |
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- José Ferrer at Find A Grave
- José Ferrer at the Internet Broadway Database
- José Ferrer at the Internet Movie Database
| Awards | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Broderick Crawford for All the King's Men |
Golden Globe Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Drama 1951 for Cyrano de Bergerac |
Succeeded by Fredric March for Death of a Salesman |
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| Persondata | |
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| NAME | Ferrer, José |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Cintrón, José Vicente Ferrer de Otero y |
| SHORT DESCRIPTION | Actor |
| DATE OF BIRTH | January 8, 1909 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Santurce, Puerto Rico |
| DATE OF DEATH | January 26, 1992 |
| PLACE OF DEATH | Coral Gables, Florida, U.S. |
