José Manuel Carballido Rey

Relevant writer and director of television programs in Cuba. He was a screenwriter for the popular humorous programs San Nicolás del Peladero and Detrás de la Fachada.

He was born in Güines, province of La Habana. When he turned twelve years old, he moved with his family to Melena del Sur, another municipality in the same province where he spent a good part of his life.

Around 1930 he began working at the Merceditas sugar mill. Poverty forced him to work in different trades to help support his family. He was also a laborer, tailor, and commission agent.

At age 20, he moved to the capital. He studied at the Escuela Normal para Maestros, located in the country's capital, and thanks to his excellent academic record he obtained a position as a grammar professor (1939) at the institution itself. Here he also served as head of office until 1952.

He pursued university studies in Philosophy and Letters, and Pedagogy at the Universidad de La Habana, until obtaining the title of Doctor in the latter subject. He also began studies in law.

During this period he joined the Ala Izquierda Estudiantil and the Liga Antiimperialista, revolutionary youth organizations opposed to the dictatorships of Gerardo Machado, first, and Fulgencio Batista, afterward. On one occasion, while participating in a demonstration for the funeral of student leader Julio Antonio Mella, assassinated in Mexico (1929) by orders of dictator Gerardo Machado, he received a bullet wound from the "porristas" who were trying to disperse the crowd.

His first works were short stories, published in various newspapers and magazines, some of which he would later compile in his books.

He arrived at radio in the mid-1940s and immediately began writing scripts, including one for the adventure program Roldán, el Temerario which was broadcast by Radio Cadena Azul. From then on, his scripts became a guarantee of high audience ratings, both on radio and, later, on television, which he was part of from its beginnings in Cuba. Together with Iris Dávila, he was one of the most popular screenwriters among those who wrote for the program La novela cubana.

In 1941 he won first mention in the Latin American short story contest "Hernández Catá". Two years later he won first prize in that same competition.

From the early 1950s he dedicated himself to commercial advertising in the emerging Cuban television. He was owner of Publicidad Siboney, sponsor of a large part of the broadcasts of the powerful Circuito CMQ; but his most fruitful period as a screenwriter for Cuban mass media, especially television, began after 1959.

Following the revolutionary triumph, he continued working actively in television; he was Head of Dramatic Programming for Television and founder of the Instituto Cubano de Radiodifusión (1962), activities he carried out simultaneously with his artistic work as a screenwriter.

One of the greatest milestones of his career as a screenwriter was achieved when, after the death of Marcos Behmaras (1966), he began writing the scripts for the popular program Detrás de la Fachada, a program created by Behmaras and directed by José Antonio Caíñas Sierra. The program aired from the late 1950s of the last century but achieved great television viewership between the 1960s and 1970s.

The central theme was everyday life in a large apartment building with different couples, and humorous situations frequently referred to the superstitious roots of the Cuban population. Among the elements that strengthened the program in popular taste, one can mention the hosting of Cepero Brito and Consuelo Vidal; as well as the performance of a first-rate cast. For almost thirty years, Detrás de la fachada was broadcast on Cuban television.

He also wrote another famous humorous program, San Nicolás del Peladero, which remained in public preference for more than 20 years. "San Nicolás" is the name of an imaginary town in the national geography, where characters lived identified with the dead republic: "Plutarco Tuero" (the mayor, played by Enrique Santiesteban), "Remigia" (the mayor's wife, in charge of the famous actress María de los Ángeles Santana), "Éufrates del Valle" (the journalist, played by Germán Pinelli), "Ñico Rutina" (the merchant of the place, assumed by Carlos Moctezuma), "Cheo Malanga" (the bully, played by Enrique Arredondo), "sergeant Arencibia" (the abusive military man, acted by Mario Limonta), among other typical characters that symbolized the social evils of the era before the triumph of the Cuban revolution. The superobject of the program was to present the tragedy of the past as a didactic and hilarious toy at the same time. The musical theme of the program is the clearest expression of this latent intention, as the lyrics said: "...those times that have already passed...will never return".

In reality, what later became known as San Nicolás del Peladero, began as small comic scenes placed to separate the musical performances of the flagship program Ritmos de Cuba, which was hosted by Consuelito Vidal and Germán Pinelli. However, the success achieved by the sketches written by Behmaras and, later, by Carballido Rey, caused the public to push music to a secondary plane and re-baptize the program.

It is important to note that all broadcasts transmitted over twenty years aired live. Furthermore, each broadcast addressed a specific theme. Some of those single-theme chapters were: "The Arrival of the Automobile", "The Elections for Mayor", "The Circus in El Peladero", "The Mayor Celebrates His Birthday", "The Mayor's Wife Goes on Vacation", "Plutarco Funerary", "The General Bad Face", "Cecilia Valdés in San Nicolás del Peladero", "Sergeant Arencibia Rises to Colonel", "Remigia's Birthday", "Majagua Smuggler", "The Banana Hurricane", among so many titles corresponding to a long list of scripts that are the fruit of the ingenuity of an extraordinary creator.

In 1968, he wrote the series of two hundred chapters of Los mambises for the program Aventuras broadcast on Channel 6 of Cuban television. According to his own words, this was an attempt to rescue the history of Cuba in the eyes of new generations. Once again the social and political commitment of Carballido Rey merged with his artistic concerns to bring viewers a message laden with deeply patriotic content.

Throughout his life he collaborated with several periodical publications among which are: Gaceta del Caribe, Orígenes, Bohemia, Carteles, El País Gráfico, Romances, Hoy Domingo, Palante, El Nacional (México), La Nación (Buenos Aires), El Nacional (Caracas). He also left his mark on texts such as El gallo y otros cuentos (1965), Cuentos dispersos (1978), Crónicas del peladero (1982), El tiempo es un centinela insobornable (1983) and Un sarcófago para el Buey de Oro (1985).

He died on August 28, 1987.