Behind him lies a tale of growth and redemption fit for a motion picture. Today, one of entertainment's finest exponents and the star of La Patagonia Rebellious must bid farewell.
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| Pepe Soriano |
Pepe Soriano, a 93-year-old actor, passed away this afternoon. The legendary Argentine actor, most known for his parts in La Patagonia Rebellious, Murder in the Senate of the Nation, and La Nona, has appeared in a large number of enduring Spanish and domestic productions. Carlos Rottemberg, a theatre producer, announced the news on his official networks.
Celebrities' tearful farewell to Pepe Soriano, one of the most important figures in national theatre, television, and film.
"A wonderful guy has gone. Our emotions have been greatly affected by Pepe Soriano's passing. He departs with a pal. Then came the talented actor, who is among the greatest in our nation. Huge kisses for Victoria, Diana, and the rest of the family," Rottemberg said on the Multiteatro Comafi account.
Soriano, who was born on September 25, 1929, in Colegiales, had an ambition of being an actor since he was a young child, and boy did he succeed in that endeavour. In his final interview with Teleshow in 2021, he recounted how he had boarded the trams to head to the city centre in order to fulfil a desire of seeing a play. The ticket takers recognised him right away and gave him a nice location since the passion was so intense.
After two hours, Pepe left the area. When he arrived, the poet Ral Gonzalez Tuón and Zully Moreno were walking close to his home. He continued to roam those streets until he turned 18 and left. The young guy grew up and made his stage debut as an amateur actor at the Alarcón club in 1947.
"I worked as I grudgingly pursued my legal education. I started taking part in university theatre because I had the acting bug, he said. Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream and the Columbus marked her dramatic stage debut. Absolute hush during the first act. Complete quiet marks the end of the second act.
The audience starts to cheer as I enter the stage during the third act and pass away there. My teacher approached me and predicted that I would become an actor but with a wig, which meant that I could portray hunchbacks and other individuals with physical abnormalities but never a leading man. He concluded the narrative with a lot of prophesy and a sly smile, as if he knew that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. The skill endures despite its passing.
He acknowledged Alfredo Alcón's status as the finest actor of the century while maintaining a broad perspective and awareness of the facts in his statement. He was outclassed by us in terms of talent, stage presence, and voice, and although being attractive, he failed to capitalise on that. Additionally, he made a point of mentioning Lautaro Mura and Rodolfo Bebán in order to slyly imply that "Ulysses Dumont and I came behind."
Life went on, and Juan Lamaglia y Sra. and La Patagonia Rebellious helped him gain prominence, until the big night for the Argentines arrived in 1976. It's not a hood and a ditch, but don't go back to work, a renowned general told him.
Like the German Schultz in the renowned Héctor Olivera film, the most of his friends and coworkers fled for exile, but he chose to stay since he did not want to suffer as a martyr.
El loro calabrés, a performance piece in which he expressed his identity and goals, was his first work to tour Argentina. He gave her that name because of how his shoemaker grandpa would converse with his parrot, who had taught him Calabrian melodies.
He emerged in little places "where they could not find me: I worked, filled, and split" and had less than a thousand residents. She gave performances in public spaces including pubs, petrol stations, train platforms, schoolyards and communal kitchens. He offered a piece of bread when the performance came to a close.
“The piece of bread is essential in my life, because in this house there was bread and the bread had a value: that of affection.” Far from feeling like a hero, he always knew himself to be human. "I was very scared. He had two children. He returned to Buenos Aires, gave them the money and I left. He slept where he could. They arrested me three times,” he recalled as a collective exercise, so as not to forget.
He made the decision to stay during a dictatorship and to depart during a democracy. He left for a work chance in Spain in 1987 and didn't come back until 1992. And he discussed this in the interview from 2021, among so many accounts of those who believed that Ezeiza was their only option: "No. You have to go. Everywhere you go, unless you work as a manager for a multinational, you will be treated differently because you are a foreigner.
He left Spain and came back because he really missed it and because he belonged to the successful people. He played Francisco Franco's double in Espérame en el cielo, for which he concealed his bright blue eyes with black spectacles, bleached his hair, put on ten kilogrammes, and presented shows that received high ratings.
“But I missed my story. With Alterio we would meet for coffee and they would point us out as 'the Argentines'. He walked through streets that he did not know.” It was the time when he went to a meeting of actors, he listened to his stories but couldn't tell his own because they were from the RÃo de la Plata. “One day I told Diana: 'I feel like I want to die in Argentina.'” It was a sign.
She contacted her sister and told her not to sell the house where she had grown up because she would be moving back in. "We gave away everything we had accumulated over those years in 15 days and then came back." He was not welcomed with open arms in Argentina. "Memory is brittle here, so it was difficult for me to find a job," she summed up. She has regrets, but she has never regretted it, and she has always defended her nation: This is where I belong. I am free to criticise and thank at this place.
How everlasting his love for Diana, his companion who was 20 years younger but just as wise, made him come back time and time again.
He latently remembered their first encounter, which occurred more than 45 years ago, because of the affection with which he spoke about her. She vividly recalled it at the time. He was performing with the Zupay quartet when it happened, at the theater's exit. Pepe hesitated since she was younger, studying psychology, and he had just ended a relationship.
They fell in love and remained together forever. "I am appreciative of him. He is constantly at my side and is with me in everything, he says, with a smile on his face that is hard to put into words.
Loved by the public, respected by colleagues, he won countless awards throughout his career. In 1971 he won the Silver Condor for best actor for Juan Lamaglia y Sra , in 1995 he won the supporting actor for A Shadow You Will Soon Be and in 1998 the Association of Cinematographic Chroniclers of Argentina gave him the Silver Condor Award to the trajectory.
He won the Konex award in 1981 and the Konex Special Mention for Lifetime Achievement in 2021 and on television, he won the MartÃn Fierro for his work in Triplets. A complete example of his capacity for drama, comedy and commitment to the profession, of whom in 2010 he was declared an illustrious citizen of the City of Buenos Aires by the Legislature.
Soriano maintained a dream, not for himself but for everyone, despite having experienced coups and revolutions, achievements and failures, conflicts and plaudits. "I want to see people with jobs, a positive attitude, and a roof over their heads rather than a tarp. Nobody gets to pick their birthplace, and practically everyone dies against their choice. I simply want us all to be able to live in dignity," he said, quoting Ernesto Cardenal, whose words still ring true today like a final testament: We must establish a nation here. We are standing at the threshold of a promised country. "My poetry and song are from this land."
Source: Infobae