Acting and filmmaking After some performing school works, he decided to study Philosophy and Letters in Madrid, which he subsequently abandoned when the
Spanish Civil War began, but his true vocation led him to the theater. During the Civil War he received classes at the
CNT School of Actors, making his professional debut in 1938 at the company. There he was discovered by the Spanish playwright
Enrique Jardiel Poncela, who offered him his first major opportunity in 1941, the role as "Redhead" in the play
We Thieves Are Honourable. In 1943, Fernán Gómez joined the film studio
Cifesa and made his first movie appearance in
Cristina Guzmán, directed by
Gonzalo Delgrás. Between the 1940s and 1960s, he established himself as a leading actor in the Spanish film industry, mostly in comic roles:
El destino se disculpa (1945),
Anchor Button (1948),
The Last Horse (1950),
I Want to Marry You (1951),
Captain Poison (1951),
The Pelegrín System (1952),
That Happy Couple (1953),
Airport (1953),
Nobody Will Know (1953),
The Other Life of Captain Contreras (1955),
Faustina (1957), and
La becerrada (1963). He also revealed his ability to play drama in
Carnival Sunday (1945),
Life in Shadows (1948),
Reckless (1951),
The Tenant (1957), and
Rififi in the City (1964). During his career he occasionally play supporting roles in such foreign films as
Voice of Silence (1953),
The Bachelor (1955), starring
Alberto Sordi,
The Pyjama Girl Case (1977), with
Ray Milland, and '''' (1991). '' (1962) In the 1950s he began to direct movies, earning a nomination for Best Film at the
Mar del Plata International Film Festival for his 1958 comedy
La vida por delante, a story about the difficulties that a newly married couple has in moving forward with their housing, work and economic life. The film pioneered in Spain in breaking the
fourth wall and telling the plot in the form of
flashbacks and its success led him to made a sequel,
La vida alrededor (1959). His first films tended to be humorous satires, including
The Wicked Carabel (1956),
For Men Only (1960), and ''
Don Mendo's Revenge (1962), a film adaptation of the play of the same name by Pedro Muñoz Seca that was highly acclaimed at the time. In 1964 he filmed El extraño viaje, a dark portrait of Spanish rural repression. It was voted seventh best Spanish film by professionals and critics in 1996 Spanish cinema centenary, and included in a British Film Institute list published in 2016 by film director Pedro Almodóvar among the 13 great Spanish films that inspired him. The latter was followed by Life Goes On'' (1965), one of the most terrifying and merciless moral portraits of
Francoist Spain. He was very much in demand as an actor in the 1970s and 1980s, expanding his range in many films of the new Spanish cinema: starring alongside
Geraldine Chaplin in
Carlos Saura's
Ana and the Wolves (1973) and its sequel
Mama Turns 100 (1979),
The Love of Captain Brando (1974),
Pim, pam, pum... ¡fuego! (1975),
The Remains from the Shipwreck (1978),
Maravillas (1981),
Feroz (1984),
The Court of the Pharaoh (1985),
Requiem for a Spanish Peasant (1985),
Half of Heaven (1986),
Moors and Christians (1987), and in the title role of
Leopoldo de Gregorio, 1st Marquess of Esquilache in
Esquilache (1989). In 1973 he starred in
Víctor Erice's
The Spirit of the Beehive, reaching an international audience for his role as a mournful intellectual father who has a small beehive inside his house. That same year he played
Don Quixote in the Spanish-Mexican comedy
Don Quijote cabalga de nuevo, co-starring
Cantinflas as
Sancho Panza. In 1977, he won the
Silver Bear for Best Actor at the
27th Berlin International Film Festival for his role as a middle-aged man who decides one day to live in the bathroom and never leave it in
The Anchorite, and again at the
35th Berlin International Film Festival in 1985 for his role as a broke
Roman law professor who offers himself as a slave to an old student in exchange for house and food in
Stico. He also won the for Best Actor for his role in Carlos Saura's film
The Stilts (1984) at the
41st Venice International Film Festival. He directed and starred in two notable productions for
Televisión Española: the fantasy TV movie '
, which he won the Grand Prix for Best Director at the 9th International Television Festival Golden Prague in 1973, and the 1974 miniseries ', a historical comedy set in the
17th Century which was based on the
picaresque novel. As a filmmaker he made, among others,
My Daughter Hildegart (1977), a film inspired in the life of Spanish activist
Hildegart Rodríguez Carballeira, which turned out to be a box office hit in Spain,
Mambru Went to War (1986), that gave him his first
Goya Award for Best Actor,
Voyage to Nowhere (1986), based on his novel published in 1985 which describes a troupe of impoverished actors traipsing from village to village, achieving the Goya Awards for
Best Film,
Best Director and
Best Adapted Screenplay in 1987, and
The Sea and Time (1989), winner of the Special Jury Prize at the 1989
San Sebastián International Film Festival. The 1990s was a less active acting period for him, but he enjoyed something of a revival, featuring in five major projects: the historical co-production
The Dumbfounded King (1991), the two winners of the
Academy Award for
Best Foreign Language Film Belle Époque (1992) and
All About My Mother (1999),
The Grandfather (1998), which he won a second
Goya Award for Best Actor in 1999 for his praised role as Don Rodrigo, Count of Albrit, an old Spanish aristocrat, and the hit ''
Butterfly's Tongue (1999), playing Don Gregorio, a republican schoolteacher. In between, he was part of the cast of the comedy show Los ladrones van a la oficina'' (The thieves go to the office, 1993–1996), awarded an
Onda Award in 1993. In 1999 the San Sebastián International Film Festival granted to him the
Donostia Award, which made him the first Spanish movie-maker to receive this distinction. In the 2000s he appeared in
Plenilune (2000),
Visionaries (2001), the popular
prime time television series
Cuéntame cómo pasó (Remember When, 2001),
The Shanghai Spell (2002),
Tiovivo c. 1950 (2004), and
Something to Remember Me By (2005). One of his last great performances was in the film
In the City Without Limits (2002), again with Geraldine Chaplin, where he plays a dying man who suffered fearful delusions. The last film he directed was
Lázaro de Tormes (2001), from which he received his second Goya Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. In 2005 he was awarded with the
Honorary Golden Bear at the
55th Berlin International Film Festival for his lifetime achievement.
Stage and literary work In addition to his extensive career in front and behind the screen, Fernán Gómez wrote numerous stage plays, novels, memoirs, articles, and poems. The most successful was the play
Las bicicletas son para el verano (Bicycles Are for the Summer) in 1977, showing the sufferings of a family and their neighbours in besieged Madrid during the Civil War. He won the for that work in 1978, and it has been adapted into a
popular film in 1984, directed by
Jaime Chávarri. As theater director he staged plays such as
Dear Liar (1962), by
Bernard Shaw;
The Kreutzer Sonata (1963), by
Leo Tolstoy;
Thought (1963), by
Leonid Andreyev; and comedies
Gravemente peligrosa (1962),
Mayores con reparos (1965) and
La vil seducción (1967). He was runner up of the
Premio Planeta de Novela for his 1987 historical novel
El mal amor. In 1993 he won the
Premio de Novela Espasa-Humor for his comedy novel
El ascensor de los borrachos. In 1990 he published his memoirs,
El Tiempo Amarillo (The Yellow Time), which he later expanded in a second edition in 1998 named
El Tiempo Amarillo: memorias ampliadas (1921-1997). The work has 700 pages and was presented at the
Círculo de Bellas Artes in Madrid. On October 27, 1995, he received the
Prince of Asturias Award for the Arts from the hands of
Prince Felipe. On January 30, 2000, he entered the
Royal Spanish Academy for his artistic accomplishments, where he took possession of Seat
B with the speech titled "Aventura de la palabra en el siglo xx". ==Personal life, death and legacy==