Eduardo Robreño Duprés

Among his works are: History of Cuban Popular Theater, Anthology of the Alhambra Theater, and As They Told It to Me I Tell It to You. For years he maintained a popular literary gathering on the sidewalk of the Louvre, in the arcades of the Hotel Inglaterra in La Habana.

He always identified himself "as a frustrated musician and a ballplayer retired by the student struggles of the 1930s". A strange confession for someone who could take pride in the authorship of essential texts such as History of Cuban Popular Theater (1961), Any Time in the Past Was... (1978), Alhambra Theater (1979), As They Told It to Me I Tell It to You (1981) and As I Think It I Say It (1985), to mention only some of his works, although he always preferred Patricians in La Habana (1990), where he addresses the stay of prominent figures of our history in the capital.

During the first 50 years of his existence, he was a man of law, notaries and courts. According to his son Gustavo, "the triumph of the Revolution in 1959 made him very happy, that fact embodied in itself the ideal with which he had dreamed since he was young". Enrique de la Osa initiated him into journalism at Bohemia. In parallel, he wrote for the stage The Last Musketeer, Mariana's House, Grandmother Cacha, Memories of the Alhambra, Love Me Dearly…

He also worked in radio and many still remember him in the program What a Republic That Was!, which he did together with journalist Mario Kuchilán and that formidable actress, María de los Ángeles Santana, with Enrique Núñez Rodríguez as scriptwriter. On Radio Rebelde he shared Memoirs with Manuel Villar. On Radio Taíno he was heard in Topics.

Playwright, writer of customs, theater researcher, radio man, what was he most passionate about?, he was asked one day and... "Baseball and music", he simply answered.

"He was center field and leadoff batter at the University of La Habana, he had a good arm and ran very well", he used to say. The closure of the institution of higher learning by Machado's tyranny in 1930, and the strike of March 1935, against the Caffery-Batista-Mendieta regime, put an end to his career in that sport. "The Cuban baseball player of the century?", he says "Martín Dihigo. He played all positions and in all of them he was a star. A sign stealer, he got them very easily from the opponent. He invented many of those plays that are seen today. His intelligence was such that he would go to Venezuela, Mexico, and play successfully against different clubs, he would position himself in the field according to how each opponent batted. He had an arm that could have been a star among the stars of Major League pitching, but they wouldn't let him play because he was Black. And he batted to all fields, the same a home run as he would tap a ball".

Radio Columnist. For those who heard him on the station, it was like traveling through time, the same to a theater, as to a bar, and they even learned of great political personalities and others of not such high lineage, who visited the island, or who simply lived in the capital, he narrated with great Cubanness each fact that he commented on, because that's for sure, Eduardo Robreño was a columnist, Cuban and very creole.

He studied Civil and Public Law. In 1926 he made his debut on the radio station of brothers Manuel and Guillermo Salas singing the first tango that Carlos Gardel performed. He continued his studies and graduated as a Lawyer. He leaves radio for a few years. He dedicates himself more to politics through the Authentic party and also to insurance business. Finally he has to leave the country. Upon his return in 1959, he began to write and also to make scripts for television.