Alfredo Landa

The son of a Civil Guard captain, the birth of Alfredo Landa Areitio is closely linked to number 3. Apparently, he was born on 3 of 3 of 33, at number 3 of a street in Pamplona. He felt very attached to his land. “I am Navarro, first and foremost, Navarro! And that they do not touch me ‘the lean’ with the subject. Being from Navarre marks a level ”, declared the actor in an interview. But he soon left Navarra, because when he was twelve years old his father was transferred to San Sebastián. In the Gipuzkoan capital he decided to enroll in the Faculty of Law. There, he discovered his acting vocation when he joined the group known as Fundación Teatro Español Universitario (TEU).

As part of this institution, he participated in about forty productions of works by various authors. His mother, alarmed that he wanted to become a comedian, went so far as to organize a family meeting, with him and his uncles, to convince him that he was crazy. “I told my mother that if she wanted to, she would stay with me, and I would finish law school. But then, if at forty I wasn’t happy, I would blame her. When she heard this, she herself said to go away, ”he explains later. Shortly after, he took the train to Madrid, the 3rd important city of his life, in search of an opportunity to earn a living professionally as an actor. Since when he was at the TEU they had given him a university prize for acting, he managed to get a letter of recommendation for an important stage director from Madrid. But he paid no attention to him. The year was 1958, and for a long time, he only got the odd contract as a voice actor. Later they began to sign him as a secondary in the theater.

Shortly after, Landa played a role in “Eloísa is under an almond tree” at the María Guerrero theater in Madrid. As fate would have it, one afternoon the filmmaker José María Forqué stopped by the theater to see the performance . She was accompanied by Pedro Masó , the co-writer of the film she was preparing, Robbery at Three , today considered a great classic of Spanish cinema. Masó was the first to notice his talent.

“Masó asked Forqué who was that short actor he had never seen in his life. Forqué looked at the program and said that he was a certain ‘Alfredo Landa’. They decided to call me at his office the next day, ”recalls the actor. This is how he ended up playing one of the bank employees who organized a robbery at his own branch. “My first experience on set was strange. Forqué made an appointment with me at the Casa de Campo in Madrid and told me to sit down and make a scared face. And then go home ”, Landa declared. But while filming that film he ended up discovering his passion for comedy, so he didn’t care too much that he was later pigeonholed in the genre.

From that moment on, he alternated the theater with the cinema. During his first stage he made some memorable films with several of the best directors of the moment, such as El verdugo , by Luis García Berlanga , Nobleza baturra , by Juan de Orduña , Ninette and a man from Murcia , by Fernando Fernán Gómez and Historias de la televisión by José Luis Sáenz de Heredia .

The great turn in his career occurred with Ramón Fernández ‘s No desearseás al vecino del quinto , one of the great successes of Spanish cinema of all time. The actor made a memorable composition of the protagonist, Antón, a supposedly effeminate hairdresser who took advantage of his trips to Madrid to throw ‘a gray hair in the air’ in the company of young ladies. The film was quite a sociological phenomenon and started the current called “landismo”, reviled by critics, for its use of easy humor, a bit “risque”, but without going too far.

Deep down they are productions with an endearing background due to their costumbrist reflection of the time. The titles leave no room for doubt: The decent one , Although the hormone dresses in silk… , You won’t want the neighbor’s wife , Paris is worth a girl , Come flirt to the West , Little single room , Manolo, la nuit , The Repressed , Armando’s Obsessions , Naked Weekend , Alone Before Streaking , When the Horn Sounds , The Sins of an Almost Decent Girl. Seen today, they still maintain a certain grace. Some equally comic work stands out, on topics of the moment, such as Come to Germany, Pepe and Don’t pay more letters, honey .

Alfredo Landa’s cinema gained interest when Juan Antonio Bardem hired him as the protagonist of El puente (1977) , which began the 3rd and definitive stage of his filmography, marked by his best performances. The plot of Bardem’s film is very reminiscent of his usual films, since Landa plays a forty-year-old mechanic who takes advantage of a bridge to go to Torremolinos, to hit ‘the party father’. But the film has a surreal tone and a great deal of criticism towards the Spain of the time. From that moment on, they signed him for higher quality dramas or comedies, such as La vaquilla , by Luis García Berlanga , Los paraíso perdidos , by Basilio Martín Patino ,The Animated Forest , by José Luis Cuerda , The Next Station , by Antonio Mercero and The King of the River , by Manuel Gutiérrez Aragón .

He also became a kind of fetish actor for José Luis Garci , whose orders he put himself under for the first time in Las verdes prairies , from 1979. Later he was the detective Germán Areta, in El Crack and El Crack II , heartfelt tributes to film noir , adapting the formula to the Spanish reality. With Garci, Landa has also shot Lullaby , Story of a Kiss , Carousel c. 1950 and Sunday Light, after which he announced his film retirement, and his break with Garci himself, after a discussion for reasons that were never made public. Although they later reconciled, this discussion is still curious, after many years of professional collaboration, since other films by the actor, such as The Next Station , ¡Biba la banda! and El río que nos lleva , counted on Garci in production tasks.

The actor’s best professional moment came thanks to Paco el Bajo, one of the protagonists of Los santos inocentes , with which director Mario Camus adapted the famous novel by Miguel Delibes . For his work, Landa won the male performance award at Cannes, ex aequo with his co-star Francisco Rabal .

Life smiled at Alfredo Landa on a personal level. He was married to Maite Imaz for five decades. He recognized that he owed her stability and happiness to her. “Without her I would have been a jerk and I don’t think I am,” he said. The couple had three children (number 3 followed him) and several grandchildren (for a long time another three, but in the end the fourth was born). The Film Academy wanted to recognize the actor’s lifelong work with the honorary Goya, the same year that he also received a nomination for his excellent work in the aforementioned Luz de domingo .