Silvestre Alegrim

Biography

One of the Portuguese theatre's most distinctive comedians, Silvestre Alegrim, born in 1881, performed in plays, operettas and revues, from the age of ten (when he became a child actor with the Chavas Companhia Infantil) to his death in 1946 (after a last triumph in "Charley's Aunt"). His contribution to the cinema of his country is more modest: mainly secondary roles in eleven films (a domestic in A Canção de Lisboa (1933); a butler in A Rosa do Adro (1938); the night watchman in A Menina da Rádio (1944)... ). Nothing memorable, with one exception, A Severa (1931), the first sound film made in Portugal, in which he played the cheerful Timpanas. The song he sings and whistles, "A Fado do Timpanas", is a joy to listen to and to watch, all the more as the sequence is filmed with exceptional skill for its time by José Leitão de Barros.