Fortunio Bonanova makes comic frustration count in small parts, most clearly as the opera coach in Citizen Kane. We value his economy, though the brief appearances seldom allow him to develop a character much further.
Fi1m perspective
An opera coach tries to teach Susan Alexander in Citizen Kane (1941), and Fortunio Bonanova makes the man's exasperation funny. As Signor Matiste, he has work to do and good reason to lose patience. We laughed at his frustration: the difficulty of getting through a singing lesson gives us something immediately recognisable in Orson Welles's elaborate film. Bonanova is useful in precisely this sort of part, where irritation must register before the story moves on. He is worth noticing, even when the film has much larger concerns.
His work as a baritone preceded a Hollywood career that began in the late 1930s, with English-language character parts becoming more frequent after 1940. His recurring types included aristocratic dons, opera singers, managers and police chiefs, giving him opportunities to play men accustomed to being taken seriously. General Sebastiano in Five Graves to Cairo (1943) fits that pattern. These were useful opportunities for comic frustration, though repeated casting of this kind could leave the job more memorable than the man.
Billy Wilder gives him a different position in Double Indemnity (1944): Sam Garlopis, a down-on-his-luck insurance claimant. Here he contributes to the ordinary business surrounding the central crime, and that modest scale suits a performer effective in brief character parts. Our enthusiasm for the film rests chiefly on its viciously funny dialogue and three lead performances; Bonanova is a reason to look beyond them. Anyone coming chiefly for Bonanova should know that the pleasure is brief.
In Kiss Me Deadly (1955), he plays Carmen Trivago, a down-at-heel opera enthusiast, another role suited to his musical background. That later part offers a useful comparison with Matiste, but Welles gives us the clearer starting point. Bonanova's comic frustration supplies an accessible pleasure in a film whose elaborate structure can sometimes keep us at a distance. Start there, and leave a little attention for the singing teacher.
Biography
Fortunio Bonanova was the stage name of the Spanish baritone singer and actor Josep Lluís Moll. Born in Palma de Mallorca in 1895, he studied music and made his operatic debut in 1921 in Tannhäuser at the Teatre Principal in Palma. He appeared in the 1922 silent film Don Juan Tenorio and later worked in theatre and zarzuela in Europe and South America before settling in the United States after the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War.
In Hollywood he played supporting roles, often as excitable or aristocratic Latin characters. His credits include Signor Matiste in Citizen Kane (1941), Fernando in For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943), Sam Garlopis in Double Indemnity (1944) and Courbet in An Affair to Remember (1957). He also appeared in television series such as I Love Lucy.
Bonanova continued working in film and television until the mid-1960s. He died in Woodland Hills, California, in 1969.
