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Raúl Juliá
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Raúl Rafael Juliá y Arcelay (; March 9, 1940 – October 24, 1994), better known as Raúl Juliá, was a Puerto Rican actor whose career included dramatic, comic, and musical roles in theater, film, and television.
á was born at the Floral Park subsection of San Juan, the son of Olga Arcelay and Raúl Juliá. He was the oldest of four brothers and sisters; his brother Rafael died in an automobile accident in 1960.
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Encyclopedia
Raúl Rafael Juliá y Arcelay (; March 9, 1940 – October 24, 1994), better known as Raúl Juliá, was a Puerto Rican actor whose career included dramatic, comic, and musical roles in theater, film, and television.
Biography
Early life
Juliá was born at the Floral Park subsection of San Juan, the son of Olga Arcelay and Raúl Juliá. He was the oldest of four brothers and sisters; his brother Rafael died in an automobile accident in 1960. His mother was a mezzo-soprano who abandoned a potential career as a singer when she married Juliá's father. Some relatives on his father's side were part-time musicians.
Raúl's father was the founder of "La Cueva del Chicken Inn", a restaurant in San Juan. It was modeled after a similar restaurant in Madrid, Spain, called "Las Cuevas de Luis Candelas". Raúl's father dreamed of bringing pizza to Puerto Rico, and made that dream a reality when he hired an Italian cook in New York City who could prepare authentic Italian pizza for Puerto Rican palates. Raúl's sister María Eugenia claims that their father was, in a way, the first fast food mogul Puerto Rico ever had, since the relatively simple food would ensure prompt service at the restaurant. He founded the restaurant at the very house where Raúl and his brother Rafael were born, the brothers and sisters literally grew up with the family business, and the property is still owned by the Juliá family.
Throughout his youth, the success of his father's business ensured excellent schooling for young Raúl and his brothers and sisters. He finished his high school studies at the local Colegio San Ignacio de Loyola and had a strict Jesuit upbringing. After spending a year at Fordham University, he returned to Puerto Rico and attended the University of Puerto Rico where he was a member of Phi Sigma Alpha Fraternity and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree.
Career
Juliá discovered acting early in his academic career, beginning with a role in first grade. "From then on, that was it," he told Cigar Aficionado magazine in 1993. "I knew there was something special about the theater for me, something beyond the regular reality, something that I could get into and transcend and become something other than myself." He was deeply involved in drama and art clubs in his high school years, and even played the role of Rodrigo in Othello at a local drama production. For a while he was also a game show host and teen program host on Puerto Rican television.
Upon graduation from college, Juliá was faced with a difficult choice between his parents' wishes and his own. They wanted him to remain in Puerto Rico and continue on to law school. They also pointed out that his uncles were the owners of a mental hospital, and that he could have guaranteed success as a doctor. He, however, wanted to pursue an acting career. Finally, like so many Puerto Ricans and aspiring actors, he left for New York City in 1964. He asked his parents only to finance the tuition fees of any acting classes he might take, while he would support himself through various odd jobs, including selling fountain pens and serving as a telemarketer. Juliá began studying drama with Wynn Handman. He soon found work in off-Broadway theater and at open air performances in New York's Central Park.
In 1966, Juliá began working with theater impresario Joseph Papp and the New York Shakespeare Festival. He credited his recently-developed sales skills and sheer persistence with convincing Papp—after several tries—of allowing him to do Shakespearean roles, which he considered the epitome of acting roles. His Shakespearean roles included Edmund in King Lear in 1973, Petruchio in The Taming of the Shrew opposite Meryl Streep and the title role of Othello in 1979. Juliá went on to enjoy great success on the musical stage, receiving four Tony Award nominations for his roles in Two Gentlemen of Verona (1972, for which he also won the 1972 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Performance), Where's Charley? (1975), as Mack the Knife in The Threepenny Opera (1976), and in the Fellini-inspired Nine (1982). He appeared in over a dozen Broadway productions, including the legendary 1973 flop musical Via Galactica. During this time he also starred from 1977 to 1980 in the title role of the critically acclaimed stage revival of Dracula and as Major Sergius Saranoff opposite Kevin Kline and Glenne Headly in the 1985 revival of Arms and the Man. The stage successes led to his formal film debut in The Organization (1971), in which he starred opposite Sidney Poitier (he had played bit parts in two previous films, Stiletto and The Panic in Needle Park). In the early 1980s, Juliá was invited to join Francis Ford Coppola's Zoetrope Studios company and appeared in One from the Heart (1982).
In 1971, Juliá also appeared as a regular cast member, Rafael, on the children's TV series Sesame Street. Rafael only appeared on the show during the third season; afterward, Juliá moved on to other projects.
Although he never became a major film superstar (he was partial towards theater), Juliá had notable dramatic and comic roles in a number of films and made-for-TV movies. Juliá portrayed the over-sexed Italian road-race driver Franco Bertolini in 1975's The Gumball Rally. Juliá was never thrilled with the film, and it was not listed among his screen credits after his passing. He further dismissed the film while appearing as a guest on CNN's Larry King live, in which a caller asked him what he thought of the movie. Juliá would go onto have an exceptional performance in the film biography of 20th century Greek shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis in Onassis: The Richest Man in the World in which he co-starred with Anthony Quinn. In 1983, he starred in a spectacularly disastrous made-for-TV movie, Overdrawn at the Memory Bank, an adaptation of a John Varley short story which would later be mocked on Mystery Science Theater 3000. In 1984, he appeared in the Puerto Rican film La Gran Fiesta, directed by Marcos Zurinaga; his small monologue near the end of the film is regarded as the film's turning point. In Kiss of the Spider Woman (1985), he played a passionate political prisoner (he lost considerable weight to make the role credible), and in Romero (1989) he played the Salvadoran Archbishop Óscar Romero (his research for doing the film demanded that he celebrated a Roman Catholic mass along with the two priests that served as advisers to the film's production). One of his most memorable roles came as Sandy Stern, the defense attorney of Harrison Ford's character Rusty Sabich in Presumed Innocent (1990).
The Addams Family films
In the first two Addams Family films, Juliá played Gomez Addams. He also noted that his earlier recollections of the role were those from the Spanish-dubbed version of the first television series (starring John Astin in the role of Gomez—renamed "Homero" in the Spanish version), and as such, he could not draw much from them; he had to adapt the role directly from the original Charles Addams cartoons.
Personal life
Juliá met his wife, Merel Poloway, when they were both touring for a show called "Illya Darling." They were married in 1976. In 1983, they had their first son Raul Sigmund Juliá. In 1987, they had their second son, Benjamin Rafael Juliá. He had been previously married to Magda Vassallo Molinelli from 1965 to 1969.
Juliá was a lifelong supporter of Puerto Rico's independence movement. He had to convince his agent to allow him to do an advertising campaign on behalf of the Puerto Rico Tourism Company, out of his love of the country. Marcos Zurinaga, a producer and director in Puerto Rico, recalled the intensity of the actor's loyalty to his heritage. "His roots were always a source of pride," Mr. Zurinaga said, but he had "the courage to open himself to new experiences, new and different roles."
Juliá's favorite actor was Laurence Olivier; he was also a fan of William Shakespeare, Federico García Lorca, and particularly of Don Quixote, whom he portrayed onstage in the 1992 revival of Man of La Mancha. He was also a fan of opera, and while not classically trained, he would sing operatic arias when asked to.
He was a member of Phi Sigma Alpha fraternity.
Juliá was also very much involved in "The Hunger Project", which attempted to minimize world hunger through philanthropic galas; he had a personal goal of raising USD$1 million for the organization. He gave numerous anonymous donations to various organizations in Asia, Africa and Latin America, including seed money for erecting a Roman Catholic church in Mexico.
He was awarded the Courage of Conscience award March 24, 1992.Although he did not make his screen debut before 1950, Juliá was a nominee for AFI's 100 Years... 100 Stars. He did not make the cut however.
Death
In 1991, Juliá was diagnosed with stomach cancer, but he continued to perform. The illness began to take its toll on Juliá late in 1993, while he was in Mexico acting in one of his most memorable roles as Brazilian rainforest activist Chico Mendes in The Burning Season (1994), for which he posthumously won a Golden Globe Award and an Emmy Award. Juliá in fact kept his illness a secret almost until the day he died, explaining that his increasingly gaunt physical appearance was the result of a macrobiotic diet for acting roles. He denied rumors that he was suffering from cancer after a few of his friends anonymously told reporters the true nature of his condition. A little later after filming The Burning Season, Juliá traveled to Vancouver to star in the videogame-inspired film Street Fighter as the villainous M. Bison, for whom he used an English accent. The movie's ending credits began with the words "FOR RAUL. Vaya Con Dios" (Spanish, lit. "Go with God").
Juliá was set to reprise his role as M. Bison in the video game version of the Street Fighter film. Although he did meet with the game's staff, he was already very ill, and in the end, he couldn't participate in the project. Juliá's last movie was a supporting role in the made-for-cable TV drama Down Came a Blackbird.
On October 16, 1994, Juliá suffered a stroke in his New York City apartment and fell into a coma. He died eight days later. Juliá's body was flown back to Puerto Rico, where he was given a state funeral attended by thousands. He is survived by his wife and his two sons. His tomb is at the San Juan's Buxeda Cemetery in Puerto Rico.
Raúl Juliá Award
Actress Sandra Bullock was presented with the 2002 Raúl Juliá Award for Excellence, for her efforts as the executive producer of ABC’s hit sitcom The George Lopez Show in helping to expand career openings for Hispanic talent in media and entertainment fields.
America's tenor Daniel Rodriguez was honored for his charitable work, receiving the first Raúl Juliá Award from the Puerto Rican Family Institute in 2003.
Filmography
See also
- List of famous Puerto Ricans
External links
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