The renowned Cuban actor Salvador Wood passed away at age 90

June 2, 2019

The outstanding Cuban actor in cinema, radio, television and theater, Salvador Wood, National Television Prize for a Lifetime of Work, has passed away this Saturday at the age of 90.

Wood, one of the most respected and beloved Cuban actors, is admired by generations of Cubans and remembered for his unforgettable roles in Cuban films The Death of a Bureaucrat and The Brigadista, among others.

The also ACTUAR Prize for a Lifetime of Work, awarded by the Artistic Agency of Performing Arts ACTUAR 2016, will be remembered as one of the most popular, prestigious and versatile actors of our performing arts.

He was born on November 24, 1928, in Santiago de Cuba, where his life companion, Yolanda, was also born. His parents were from Santiago and due to the paternal lineage of the Woods, he was the only one who had the courage to be a theater, radio, television and cinema actor.

Salvador Wood regretted not having learned music and not playing any musical instrument, because that art, called by Martí the most beautiful form of beauty, helps actors of any genre greatly.

An Author is Born

His first challenges as an actor were in radio, in 1943, in a special program about the execution of eight medical students, on November 27. He played the role of one of the executed students.

Later he came to theater and his first challenge was at just 17 years old, in 1945, organized by the Comedy and Dramatic Art Group created in Santiago de Cuba by Matanzas actor José María Béjar, in the work Don Juan Tenorio, by Zorrilla. Béjar played Tenorio and he played his counterpart, Don Luis Mejías; a work in verse, a classic of Spanish Romantic theater. What is most amusing is that even today people remember by heart the long monologue that Don Luis Mejías gives to Don Juan Tenorio in the Tavern El Laurel.

Following that, in 1952, came his first challenge in television, in a program by Paco Alfonso, on Channel 2, directed by Jesús Cabrera, where he played a peasant character for the first time. After that he has played 18 different peasants.

Later, in 1960, he debuted in cinema, in a documentary titled Chinchín, where he played another peasant. The director was Humberto Arenal and the cinematographer was Canadian Harry Tanner; it was filmed in Jovellanos, Matanzas. Where Salvador was happiest as an actor, and felt the greatest emotional impact, was in the film The Brigadista, in 1976, because there his son Patricio Wood made his debut, the two of them together in the best example of fraternity that exists, father and son.

As an actor he was also greatly marked by having played José Martí in a program directed by Pedro Álvarez, in 1968, on the occasion of the centennial of the outbreak of the War of 1868, in which my wife, then my girlfriend, embodied the figure of Carmen Zayas Bazán.

The formidable actor is an empirical professional, without formal training, and he learned by observing and asking academic actors like Juan Carlos Romero, one of the most beloved directors; Alejandro Lugo and others that would make a painful list due to involuntary omission. And since he had no academy, he faced an enormous disadvantage. That is why he had to study alone, read a lot, and drink from the techniques of Stanislavski after 1959. He has always kept acting constantly, and in 2006 he participated in another film, Ready for the Island.

At 80 years old, he declared himself hopeful about continuing to act, in love with an actress who had the courage to marry him 59 years ago publicly declaring that he has a wooden surname (Wood in English means wood), but an iron will.

Actor and Poet

Among all the decorations, diplomas, distinctions and medals he possesses, he cherished the admiration of his people and the affection of his wife, that of his two children and his four grandchildren.