Prolific Argentine actor Pepe Soriano dies at 93

[peppertree]

Argentine actor José "Pepe" Soriano, a prolific performer on stage and film in Argentina and Spain, died on Wednesday at age 93.

Soriano, who retired just two years ago after a career spanning seven decades, received international awards as recently as 2021 for his role in Gonzalo Calzada's psychological thriller “Nocturnal” - for which he earned a Best Actor nod in that year's Screamfest.

Born in Buenos Aires in 1929 to a Jewish family, Soriano left law school to join the theater in 1950. Success eluded the young actor until 1968, when he was cast as the lead in Juan José Jusid's production of Roberto Cossa's tragedy, Tute Cabrero, and in Raúl de la Torre's character study, “Mr. and Mrs. Juan Lamaglia” in 1970.

But it was his portrayal of Schultz, a German labor organizer, in Osvaldo Bayer's “Rebellion in Patagonia” in 1974 that gave him his most memorable film role.

The depiction of the brutal repression of a 1920-22 sheep ranch workers' strike resulted in serious problems for those involved in the film - including Soriano, who left for Spain shortly after a fascist military coup in 1976.

Amid an easing of repression by the dictatorship, Soriano returned in 1979. That year, he reprised his best-known stage role on film: that of a senile but ravenous grandmother in Roberto Cossa's tragicomic La nona - which in some ways mirrored the country's sudden foreign debt crisis, with its ever-growing interest obligations.

Soriano's role in “Another Hope” in 1984, a dystopian film set in a factory where energy is generated from human bodies, was likewise a timely metaphor for the targeting of union members during the 1976-83 regime. He then portrayed the late reformist Senator Lisandro de la Torre in Juan José Jusid's “An Assassination in the Senate” - a historical drama based on de la Torre's 1935 attempted murder.

Among his better-known later roles were that of a dying idealist determined to stop the sale of a historic Uruguayan steam locomotive in Diego Arsuaga's “The Last Train” (2002), and as an elderly and struggling Argentine immigrant in New York in Rodrigo Fürth's “Through Your Eyes” (2006).

At: https://euro.eseuro.com/news/1014977.html

Prolific Argentine actor and playwright Pepe Soriano, 1929-2023.

Soriano was equally at home on stage as on film. “Cinema is the great medium. It is really the possibility of showing work for posterity,” he noted recently.

“Theater is like water in your hands: It begins and ends, and remains, in memory. Cinema, on the other hand, rescues (memories) from the greats.”

[Judi Lynn]

1. He made so many meaningful films, not frivolous, in any sense. They informed.

His choices were courageous. The world needs him back, permanently.

He was undoubtedly hated by the death machine which had hijacked the government. Wow.

Hope to learn more about his life and his work, and I'm sorry I didn't know about him earlier.

Thank you, peppertree.

May he rest in peace.

[peppertree]

2. Absolutely. He was one of the consular names in Argentine cinema - and often, with a message.

My favorite role of his - of the ones I'm familiar with - has to be that of Senator Lisandro de la Torre (1868-1939) in the 1984 historical drama, Assassination in the Senate.

It deals with his probe into the cartelization and massive tax evasion among British-owned slaughterhouses, which were given a virtual monopoly over beef exports (a top export at the time) - while using their position to strangle locally-owned firms out of business, and evading close to $10 million a year in taxes (in 1935 dollars).

The Ag. Minister at the time, who was collecting bribes from the British, ultimately plotted to have de la Torre assassinated - an attempt that failed because an ally of de la Torre's threw himself in front of the senator, sacrificing his own life. The minister (of the powerful Duhau family) was never prosecuted.

If you like, here's a good copy of the film - with good English close-captioning. If nothing else, watch the first six minutes - which sum up the controversy, with the white-bearded Soriano in the title role.

It also includes some very nice footage and stills of the Argentine Congress. Enjoy!