Roberto Escalada(1914-1986)
- Actor
Roberto Escalada began working on the radio and it was his voice the
one that called the attention of producers. He was handsome enough to
start a career as a member of different movies casts. It was director
Carlos Hugo Christensen who used this very good performer to create a
new masculine Latinamerican type in "Sapho, story of a passion". In
this exceptional melodrama, Escalada was coupled with Mecha Ortiz, and
older woman. His fate was sealed in that he became a masochistic icon
in the 40s, squeezed and put out to pasture by shadowy ladies old - the
mentioned Ortiz or young Olga Zubarry. His best movie of the 40s is
"Los Pulpos" - "The octopuses" directed by Christensen, too. In 1950 he
was chosen to play the central role of a Bioy Casares' short novel that
in cinema was called "Mr Oribe's crime". And in 1955 he was a
magnificent businessman in "Yesterday it was spring" - "Ayer fue
primavera" - directed by Fernando Ayala. According to Olga Zubarry -
his couple in some films - he was an affable man with a strong sense of
humour. His life changed at the beginning of the 60s when he got
married and start working on TV. A heavy smoker he had some troubles
during this decade. Problem was that roles for him were unavailable in
cinema and he spent the last years of this life dedicated to TV.
