# Manuel Porto is more than a tremendous actor

**Date:** 09/30/2020

Cuban actor Manuel Porto has just turned 75 years old. Always remembered and admired for the diversity of complex characters he has embodied, each one always different, with profound psychological and physical personality shifts, but always with the same mastery; Porto is a tremendous actor, but he is more than a tremendous actor.

Sometimes we admire foreign performers so much and name Robert de Niro, Al Pacino, Anthony Hopkins, Denzel Washington, Jeremy Irons, but Cuba has a group 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 out of vocation but to have the right to more passes during his time in Mandatory Military Service, which is why he registers in the Movement of Amateur Artists of the FAR.

In 1968, he still was part of that movement, and then the Cuban Institute of Radio and Television (ICRT) holds a national call and selects six actors, among them Porto, and he begins to play small roles, mostly as an extra, in television programs, until after being discharged from the army the following year, at just 20 years old he is hired and begins working at that institute.

There he meets a generation of extraordinary actors who became for Porto, as well as for other young actors at that time, referents 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 drew nourishment for his work not only on the small screen but also in theater.

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

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

On the other hand, Porto is one of those actors who validate the project in which they participate; 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 nearly 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 anthology 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 collectively, an important group of accolades that recognize the excellence of his interpretations.

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

But at the beginning we said that Porto is more than a tremendous actor, or more than "a log of an actor," because he was able to, in an act of total selflessness, settle in the Ciénaga de Zapata, to found the Community Artistic Group Korimacao, in 1992.

The story began with the filming of the novel Cuando el agua regresa a la tierra, which took place there in the Ciénaga, which after so many years is almost as much his as Havana.

Porto is a rather singular person, and this altruistic dedication to art demonstrates it, with which he has made a substantial contribution to Cuban culture with the creation of a project whose founding principles were, and remain to the present, to raise the cultural and educational level of the inhabitants of that beautiful place in southern Cuba; to offer them the possibility of educational, cultural and spiritual growth and at the same time, contribute to the improvement of habits and customs of the community.

Furthermore, to make visible and preserve the cultural roots of the region by raising awareness among its residents of the essential values they possess, and also to promote intellectual and human development, consolidating the foundations of comprehensive artistic training, because in Korimacao's shows all artistic manifestations are fused.

Happy 75th birthday to Manuel Porto, may he continue for many years to come helping Cubans with his great cultural work.