Celebrity Biographies
Conrad San Martin
A tall actor, 1.85 meters tall, he was one of the great leading men of Spanish cinema in the 40s, when he was present in great hits such as “Los últimos de Filipinas” and “Locura de amor”, and led the cast of the most representative film of the Barcelona crime scene, “Apartado de correos 1001”. He could boast of having been in international productions and he continued working when he was of a respectable age. Conrado San Martín passed away on April 24, 2019 at the age of 98 in Madrid.
Born on February 20, 1921, in Higuera de las Dueñas, a small town in Ávila, Conrado San Martín Prieto was going to become an agricultural engineer, but the outbreak of the Civil War prevented him from studying. At the end of the contest, he took his first steps as a boxer, but opted for acting after being recruited as an extra for the first Spanish western, Oro vil , directed in 1941 by Eduardo García Maroto , who rescued him from the ring because he needed someone who knew punch
“I met this director at the gym where he trained,” recalled Conrado San Martín in an interview. “They paid me five duros a day, which at that time was a fortune, and the hotel room, so I got the urge to stay in the world.” He began a career made up of fifty titles, such as El fantasma y Doña Juanita (1944), by Rafael Gil , Los últimos de Filipinas (1945), by Antonio Román , La princesa de los ursinos (1947), by Luis Lucia , and La Lola is going to the ports (1947) and Locura de amor (1948), both by Juan de Orduña .
After giving life to Miguel, an agent of the Criminal Brigade who is investigating a crime, in Post Office Box 1001 , from 1950, he specialized for a time in thrillers, in titles such as Police Story , Contraband or Criminal Brigade . Fans of fant-terror have him at an altar, for his roles in Screams at Night and Death Whistles a Blues , by Jesús Franco , and The Beast and the Magic Sword , by Paul Naschy .
“In the late 50s I was full of dreams,” he recalled. “Above all he was obsessed with having played the Cid Campeador. I think he would have made the cut. But, boy, did they bring one from America.” Married to Olga Quiles since 1955, Conrado San MartínHe was the father of five children, and boasted of his fondness for hunting, for which reason PACMA would have pounced on him today.
The actor also slipped into international productions, for example in peplums shot in Spain, such as The Legions of Cleopatra and The Colossus of Rhodes , by a young Sergio Leone , who later when he was at the top remembered him to play a local, in Hasta que llegó su hora , and a stagecoach driver, in Agáchate, maldito , from 1968. The following year, when Simón Bolívar was filming, suffered a terrible accident when his horse slipped, which caused him a significant fracture in the spine. This forced him to stay away from the sets for a while, and to concentrate on the construction shops that he had set up, and on his construction company (he was one of the promoters of Puerto Banús).
In the 80s he triumphed, as defense attorney in the successful miniseries Proceso a Mariana Pineda , bishop in Requiem for a Spanish peasant , inquisitor in Extramuros , and colonel in Dragón Rapide . In the 90s he appeared in series such as Los ladrones van a la oficina, La Regenta and Hermanos de leche . In 2000 he played a thief in Óscar del Caz ‘s Maestros . He said goodbye to the cinema under the orders of Víctor Matellano in Vampyres , from 2015. By then he had obtained in 1997 the Fotogramas de Oro for his entire career, and in 2003 the Gold Medal of Fine Arts and the Honorary Award of the Círculo de Escritores Cinematográficos (CEC).