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The San Juan Daily Star
Monday, October 27, 2014
PR-Produced ‘Elsa & Fredʻ Soon to Debut
Shirley MacLaine Film to Open Stateside Nov. 7
By PEGGY ANN BLISS
[email protected]
A
fter making the rounds of international film festivals,
the acclaimed United States version of “Elsa & Fred,”
starring legendary actors Shirley MacLaine and Christopher Plummer, will arrive in theaters Nov. 7.
This English version of the successful Argentine-Spanish
production of 2005 is directed by Britain’s Michael Radford (“Il
Postino” and “The Merchant of Venice”).
Executive producer is Puerto Rican actor Osvaldo Ríos,
who also is making his Hollywood acting debut in the film.
The original version directed by Argentinian Marcos
Carnevale and starring the legendary Uruguayan actress China Zorrilla, who died recently, will be in theaters and premium
video on demand (VOD) folders in the U.S.
“Elsa & Fred” is the story of two people who toward the
end of their life discover that it is never too late to fall in love
again.
The star-studded supporting cast includes Marcia Gay
Harden, Scott Bakula, George Segal, Chris Noth, James Brolin
and Mexican actor Jaime Camil.
In 2008, Zorrilla amazed fans when she made film history with a record run of over a year on Puerto Rico movie
screens. She was 83 when she made the original “Elsa y Fred”
and 92 when she died in September.
Ríos announced he will also produce three films in the Dominican Republic about French general Napoleon Bonaparte,
Dominican playboy Porfirio Rubirosa and late Puerto Rican
singer Daniel Santos, whom Ríos will also play.
Ríos, star of the soap opera “Kassandra,” is listed in the
Guinness Book of World Records as the only Latin American
actor whose television series have surpassed sales of 100 countries.
In Spain, he starred with singer Isabel Pantoja in the soap
opera “Entre dos Amores,” and the soap opera “Rauzán” is
also successful in Europe. He wrote the music for his two most
recent television series, “La Viuda de Blanco” and “Santa Esperanza.”
In 1997, Ríos founded his television production company Riverside Entertainment Group, and in 1999 his film production company Grupo Gira-Soles Inc., which has produced
three miniseries, two one-episode TV specials, a movie and
several documentaries.
MacLaine, 80, won the Golden Globe Award for Best
Actress in a Motion Picture Musical or Comedy twice,
for her roles in “The Apartment” and “Irma la Douce,”
and the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture Drama twice for “Terms of Endearment” and
“Madame Sousatzka.” In 1983, she took the Academy
Award for the role of Aurora Greenway in “Terms of Endearment,” after five previous nominations for the Oscar.
She was honored with the Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille
Award in 1998.
In 2012, she received the 40th AFI Life Achievement
Award, the highest honor for a career in the U.S. film industry, from the American Film Institute, and in 2013 received the
Kennedy Center Honors for lifetime contributions to American culture through the performing arts.
Plummer, 84, is known to film audiences as Captain von
Trapp in the hit 1965 musical film “The Sound of Music” with
Julie Andrews. He also performed in the 1983 TV miniseries
“The Thorn Birds.”
Since 2000, he has played Mike Wallace in “The Insider”
and co-starred with Denzel Washington in “Inside Man,” and
in the 2009 Disney-Pixar film “Up” as Charles Muntz, “The
Last Station” as Leo Tolstoy and “The Girl with the Dragon
Tattoo” as Henrik Vanger, among many others.
Plummer has won numerous awards, including an
Academy Award, two Emmy Awards, two Tony Awards, a
Golden Globe Award, a SAG Award, and a BAFTA Award.
With his win at the age of 82 in 2012 for his role as Hal in “Beginners,” Plummer is the oldest person ever to win an Academy Award.
Morales, at 80, to Return to UPR
‘Muchas Gracias’ Play to Be Restaged
By PEGGY ANN BLISS
[email protected]
V
eteran actor, writer and director Jacobo
Morales will celebrate his 80th birthday
by presenting a play at the University
of Puerto Rico in Río Piedras, where he cultivated his love for the stage.
That was also where he met the love
of his life Blanca Silvia Eró, with whom he
formed a home six decades ago, when they
began their long collaboration on projects and
dreams.
His play “Muchas gracias por las flores,”
(Thank You for the Flowers), the first play he
wrote and produced and that now will form
part of the celebration.
The production, an initiative of Chancellor Carlos Severino, will run Dec. 9,10
and 11 with the last performance for a
gala benefit for the university’s permanent
fund.
“Muchas gracias por las flores,” a drama
of five monologues, was first presented in the
Tapia Theater in 1973.
In a 60-year career Morales has become
one of the island’s most respected figures of
film, radio, television and Puerto Rican theater.
In addition to having starred in more
than 40 plays and hundreds of television programs, the veteran actor has written eight
plays, seven feature-length films and four
short films.
He also published two collections of
poetry, and has worked under the direction
of Woody Allen and shared the screen with
singer/actress Barbra Streisand.
In 1980, Morales became the first Puerto Rican filmmaker to be nominated for an
award at the Cannes Festival, after receiving the nomination for the Best First Film for
“Dios los cría.”
He is the only Puerto Rican director to
be nominated for an Oscar, a distinction he
achieved in 2000 with the film “Lo que le pasó
a Santiago” (What Happened to Santiago) in
the category of Best Foreign Film.
The San Juan Daily Star
Monday, October 27, 2014
31
Film on Life of ‘Titi Chaguaʻ to Debut in Festival
‘Rosaura’ Tells Life of Actress Andreu
By PEGGY ANN BLISS
[email protected]
“R
osaura,” the new Puerto Rican film based
on the life of actress Rosaura Andreu (Titi
Chagua), will make its debut Wednesday as
guest film at the gala closing of the San Juan International Film Festival.
The red-carpet event with cocktails and music
will benefit the National Foundation for Popular Culture.
The film, which presents intense experiences of
the woman who harvested so many smiles from island
children with her character
m in the
character, will begin at 7 p
p.m.
Theater of the Conservatory of Music in Miramar.
Yinoelle Colón will play Andreu from 17 to 36
years of age, Marisol Calero as Celia Cavero, Ernesto
Concepción as Carlos Cervantes, Félix Monclova as
young Leopoldo Fernández, her first husband, better
known as Tres Patines (Three Skates), and the father of
her oldest son.
Other actors in the film are Braulio Castillo Jr.,
Elia Enid Cadilla, René Monclova, Junior Alvarez and
Angela Meyer. Also in the huge all-star cast are Elsie
Moreau, Natalia Villarejo, Gustavé Monco Juarbe, Mariangelie Vélez, Noelia Crespo, Dolores Pedro, Magali
Carasquillo, Luis Omar O’Farril, María Coral, Camila
Monclova, and Cristina Sesto, among others. Most of
the cast members will attend the premiere.
Cervantes was the actress’ second husband and
father of her youngest son Carlos, who produced the
film, with Meyer. Meyer said her mother Margot Debén and Andreu used to dance professionally together
for [Meyer’s] father’s theatrical company, and was like
a mother to her
her.
Gastronomy on Tap
for SHU Endowment
Scheiner Heads Lucky 13 Chef Team
By The STAR Staﬀ
“F
lavor Has a Name V,” to benefit the Sacred
Heart University (SHU) Endowment Fund,
will be held Nov. 9 in the Condado Vander-
bilt Hotel.
Chef Augusto Scheiner will head the team of
Puerto Rico’s top 13 chefs: Daniel Vasse, Efraín Cruz,
Ericka Gómez, Gerardo García Rayón, Juan José Cuevas, Juan Peña, Marisoll Hernández, Mario Pagán,
Martín Louzao, Reto Gerber, Roberto Treviño and
Steven Yiu.
The attendees will participate in a gastronomic
afternoon and a tasting of wines from six distributors:
Ballester Hermanos, Bodegar, Méndez & Co., Plaza
Cellars, Quintana Hermanos and Toma! Wine Spirits.
“The Endowment Fund will ensure institutional
viability in the long run,” said Adlín Ríos, SHU Dean
of Development. “By increasing the permanent assets,
we cement the perpetual character of the institution,
guaranteeing a university education of excellence for
future generations.”
For more information, call (787) 268-8846.
Colombia TV Shoots
Series
About
Celia
Cruz
PR Actors to Play Salsa Queen
& Her Cotton Head
By The STAR Staﬀ
A
n 80-part television series about the late legendary salsa queen Celia Cruz will star two
Puerto Ricans.
The as-yet-unnamed project will have Jeimy
Andreu, born in El Paso, Texas to a Peruvian father
and Mexican mother, went to Cuba when she married.
She left Cuba after the revolution, arriving in Puerto
Rico at the dawn of Puerto Rican television. During the
1970s, she gained fame when WIPR-TV started showing El Show de Titi Chagua (Auntie Chagua’s Show).
“Mother lived a full, active life, but she was a
woman who suﬀered a lot,” said Cervantes. “She was
in love with Puerto Rico.”
She was even better well known in Florida, where
she retired. There she had a public service radio program, “Hola que tal” (Hi, How Are You?) until she was
90.
“Rosaura,” whose script was written by Meyer,
veteran actress and producer, is directed by Gilo Rivera, with photography direction by Salvador Avellino, and original music by the legendary Miguelito
Alcaide.
The film was shot entirely in Puerto Rico, with
executive production by Carlos Cervantes Andreu for
AM Productions
Productions, Inc
Inc.
Osorio as the “Guarachera from Cuba” and the veteran actor Modesto Lacén as her husband, trumpeter
Pedro Knight, whom she called her cotton head, especially in the couple’s later years.
Fox TeleColombia, which began filming the
hour-long chapters in September in Colombia, still
has no date for airing.
Osorio, who will play the main role of Cruz in
her youth, has been formed in musical theater and
has done soap opera roles at Telemundo such as
“Santa Diabla” (Holy She-Devil) and “Porque el amor
manda” (Because Love Reigns) among others.
For Lacen, portraying Pedro Knight is nothing
new. For the 20 months that the musical “The Life and
Music of Celia Cruz” ran at the New World Stages
Theater in New York, he played the role. The Loíza
native has acted in more than 20 films made on the
island and in the States.
Lacén became familiar with Knight through
Cruz’s biographies and welcomed the challenge of
portraying the man who remained in the wings to
allow his wife’s fame to flourish.
“Although he was a trumpeter with the Sonora
Matancera, he always deferred to Celia, and so all we
know about him is through her,” Lacén once said.
Directed by Colombians Víctor Mallarino and
Liliana Bocanegra with a script by Andrés Salgado,
this version will show another face of Cruz and
Knight, but without interfering with the musical elements of their lives.
Also in the series are Carolina Gaitán, Judy Henríquez, Aida Bossa, Abel Rodríguez, Jonathan Islas,
Agmeth Scaf, Indira Serrano, Margoth Velázquez and
Moisés Angulo.