Manuel Arbó

Biography

Madrid’s Plaza de la Villa welcomed Manuel Arbó on 18 July 1898, and the stage claimed him almost as soon as he could walk. By the time talkies reached Spain, Arbó had already helped usher them in with Eran trece (1931), a brisk whodunit that let his quicksilver timing shine. A decade later he turned suicide into black comedy in El hombre que se quiso matar (1942), and five years on he slipped into Cervantes country as Sancho Panza in Dulcinea (1947), giving the loyal squire a twinkling, worldly weariness. Off-screen he shared his life with actress Virginia Barragán; together they navigated the shifting tides of Spanish cinema until Arbó’s final curtain fell in his hometown on 25 May 1973.