Óscar Álvarez Álvarez

Óscar Álvarez (1941 – June 13, 2026) was a Cuban actor with a long career in national theater and cinema. He was a member of the Teatro Estudio and Los Doce groups, two fundamental spaces in Cuba's theatrical renewal, under the direction of Vicente Revuelta. Los Doce, active between 1968 and 1970, brought together performers and creators such as Flora Lauten, René Ariza, Ada Nocetti, José Antonio Rodríguez, Carlos Pérez Peña, and Carlos Ruiz de la Tejera, under the influence of the physical theater of Polish director Jerzy Grotowski.

In film, his career was marked by his collaboration with director Tomás Gutiérrez Alea. One of his most memorable performances was in Hasta cierto punto (1983), where he played a liberal theater director who becomes romantically involved with a female dock worker, portrayed by Mirtha Ibarra. The film addressed tensions related to machismo and social contradictions in Cuba at the time.

His filmography also includes Aquella larga noche (1979), directed by Enrique Pineda Barnet; Clandestinos (1987), by Fernando Pérez; La cadena (1978) and Dolly Back (1986), by Juan Carlos Tabío; and the co-production Tesoro (1987), by Diego de la Texera.

Before emigrating to the United States in 1989, Álvarez became linked to the Cuban dissident movement and the Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation, founded by activist Elizardo Sánchez Santa Cruz. He died in Miami on June 13, 2026, at age 85, from cardiorespiratory arrest. He is survived by his wife, Isabel Cancio, a former actress at Cuba's National Puppet Theater, and his son Óscar Álvarez Holt-Seeland.