José Suárez (actor)

José Suárez made his debut in a short role in Altar Mayor (1944), a very conventional film, whose director, Gonzalo Delgrás, had paid attention to him in his work as a train conductor in Asturias. He played increasingly important roles in following Delgrás's movies and by 1948 he was already a lead actor.

He then became very popular in Spain along the late 40s and early 50s, as one of the main heartthrobs of the Spanish cinema, along with his contemporaries Francisco Rabal, Jorge Mistral and Alfredo Mayo. Nevertheless, he performed remarkably in three outstanding dramas, namely Brigada criminal (1950), Condenados (1953) and Así es Madrid (1953), in the screen version of Buero Vallejo`s most famous play, Historia de una escalera (1950), and in the historical superproduction (for Spanish standards) Alba de América (Dawn of America, 1951), playing King Fernando el Católico. He portrayed Zorro in the film La montaña sin ley (Lawless mountain) (1953), making him the first Spanish actor in the role.[1] He also co-starred with the popular Andalusian gipsy singer and dancer Lola Flores in La danza de los deseos (1954), directed by the most prestigious veteran Spanish film-maker, Florián Rey. In 1955 he co-starred Señora Ama with the Mexican and Hollywood star Dolores del Río.

In 1956, his lead role in the internationally acclaimed Calle Mayor (undoubtedly his best role, his best performance and his best film, although he always preferred Condenados) provided him with the opportunity to work in Italy with well-known film directors as Luigi Zampa in The Magistrate, starring with Claudia Cardinale, and Francesco Rosi in La sfida, starring with Rosanna Schiaffino, while he gradually lost his popularity in his home country, despite still appearing in the 60s in some interesting Spanish movies, such as A tiro limpio (1963) or La boda (1964).

José Suárez in the Spaghetti-western Texas, addio (1966).

Despite appearing too in two successful mainstream Italian films: Scano Boa (1961) and Sette uomini d'oro (1965), eventually he was almost confined to the Spanish-Italian sword and sandal and spaghetti westerns movies, the most interesting of all them being The Price of Power (1969), also known as Il Prezzo del potere or La Muerte de un Presidente. And he even played the lead in El Llanero (1964), one of the first films directed by the (in)famous master of the sexually charged horror films, Jesús Franco.

In the 70's he played too for the National Spanish television in a few series, including a Spanish-Italian coproduction on the life of Cristóbal Colón.

His last film was La trastienda (1975), an artistically dispensable but sociologically significant Spanish picture, coincident with the end of Franco era in Spain.

Suárez was for many years president of the Spanish Actors Union.

A tiro limpio poster (1963)

He died of natural causes on August 6, 1981, in Moreda, Asturias.

• Torres, Augusto M. (1994). Diccionario del cine español. Madrid: Espasa Calpe. ISBN 84-239-9203-9.

• Cinema of Spain

• José Suárez at IMDb
• José Suárez in CinéArtistes.com (in French)