Cuban actor Manuel Porto died from COVID

September 28, 2021

The National Council of the Performing Arts informed through its page on the social network Facebook that the renowned Cuban actor Manuel Porto passed away today, September 28, as a consequence of COVID. "With deep sorrow we bid farewell to Manuel Porto, one of the great talents of acting in our country," states the publication on the institution's social network.

Just on this day Porto was celebrating his birthday. He will always be remembered and admired for the diversity of complex characters he embodied, always in a different way, with profound unfolding of personality, physical and psychological, but always with the same mastery; the fact is that Porto is a tremendous actor, but he is more than a tremendous actor.

Sometimes we admire foreign thespians very much and name Robert de Niro, Al Pacino, Anthony Hopkins, Densel Washington, Jeremy Irons, but Cuba has a roster of first-rate actors of great respect, who with their acting fill the entire stage or television screen: this is the case of Porto, whose real name is Heliodoro Manuel Porto and was born on September 28, 1945 in the Havana neighborhood of Pogolotti, in Marianao.

As he has repeated on several occasions, he did not come to acting by vocation but to have the right to more passes during his time in Mandatory Military Service, which is why he enrolls in the Amateur Artists Movement of the FAR.

In 1968, he still integrated this movement, and then the Cuban Institute of Radio and Television (ICRT) held a national call and selected six actors, among them Porto, and began to play small roles, mostly as an extra, in television programs, until when discharged from the army the following year, at just 20 years old he is hired and begins to work in that institute.

There he met a generation of extraordinary actors who became for Porto, as well as for other young actors at that time, benchmarks and symbols of the high quality of acting that existed in Cuba at that time; among these masters are undoubtedly Enrique Santiesteban, Reynaldo Miravalles, Raquel and Vicente Revuelta, José Antonio Rodríguez, Miguel Navarro, Verónica Lynn, Gina Cabrera, and so many others from whose experience Porto was nourished for his work not only on the small screen but also in theater.

Because these actors and others like Angel Toraño and Pedro Álvarez, held stage productions in the remembered Sala Tespis that existed at that time in the Habana Libre hotel, and on several occasions Porto had the opportunity to share those boards with them.

From this decade onwards what was not a dream of vocation became the life career of Manuel Porto, in which the inventory of theater works, television, radio and film performances becomes quite extensive.

On the other hand, Porto is one of the actors who validates the project in which he participates; that is, when you read his name in the credits, or his participation is announced, you have almost absolute certainty that the proposal is artistically good.

Between 1976 and 2010 he has appeared in about twenty films, among them stand out Leyenda (1981), by Rogelio París, Se permuta, 1983, by Juan Carlos Tabío; Plácido (1986), by Sergio Giral; La vida en rosa (1989), by Rolando Díaz; Caravana (1990), by Rogelio París; Barrio Cuba (2005), by Humberto Solás; Omerta (2008), by Pavel Giroud, and José Martí: el ojo del canario (2010), by Fernando Pérez.

Likewise, his anthological works remain in the memory of Cubans: El tío Vania, El tesoro del Mallorquín, La hoguera, El vuelo del quetzal; the continued television series La frontera del deber, Alguien me habló de los naufragios, Algo más que soñar, La semilla escondida, and the stellar production Cuando el agua regresa a la tierra.

Porto's magnificent performance in these and many other artistic pieces has guaranteed him the admiration of the public and specialized critics, and as a whole, an important group of laurels that recognize the excellence of his interpretations.

Among the laurels and other recognitions that have been conferred upon him are the orders Combatiente internacionalista 2do grado, Raúl Gómez García, and for Traditional Culture; Replica of the Machete Máximo Gómez. State Council; National Prize for Community Culture, from the Ministry of Culture and Best Actor Award at the XX Trieste Film Festival, Italy, 2005.