Luis Brandoni Died: Farewell to a Master of Acting and Dedication Until the End

It was the second performance on Saturday, a few weeks ago, and he I was up on stage fighting. He looked fragile – at the beginning of the year he had been hospitalized – but at the same time he seemed to whisper a “trust me”. And those of us who were sitting in the stalls of the Multitabarís, watching him with Soledad Silveyra in Who is who?we sensed that Luis Brandoni He was going to be able to make it to the end of the performance even if the lyrics were left in the air and his walk was slow. And he could. And the entire room, the entire room, stood up. That was Beto, a type of fighting against whatever with courage and dignity, even against the deterioration that the passage of time sometimes produces. This Monday he lost the last battle. He was just 86 years old and had a path built through talent and commitment..

He was out of this world. A versatile guy to make his characters the best possible, all credible creatures. Many of them made you laugh, others made you cry, others made you both, others made you think, the other three things.

Cornered due to various health problems, on Saturday, April 11 He fell at home and had to be hospitalized. Although a media rumor spoke of a stroke, immediately – after medical studies – His family and work environment confirmed that it was not a stroke.

for the fall He hit his head and that caused a brain hematoma, for which he had been hospitalized. until evaluating its evolution. He spent a week fighting. He couldn’t take it anymore.

As soon as he was hospitalized, the theater producer, and close friend of the actor, Carlos Rottemberg He also quickly clarified that it was “a bruise resulting from the blow itself, which must be controlled until it is absorbed (…) This now requires a few days of time for evaluation and recovery in a sanatorium. That is why since Friday the season is stopped“, he explained from his X account, Multitheater.

Brandoni was in a relationship with the screenwriter and director Saula Benavente and he had two daughters, the result of his marriage to the actress Marta Bianchi. Trained at the National Conservatory of Music and Performing Arts, he was an actor since he was 20 and never wanted to stop working. But It is known that wanting and being able are not always the same.. The prohibitions during the last military dictatorship also reached him, like many of his generation, such as Carlos Carella and Héctor Alterioamong others.

Furthermore, together with his family, In 1974 he had to go into exile to Mexico due to the threats received by Triple A.. The following year they decided to turn around. Resist was a verb that knew how to exalt.

At 86 – she turned this Saturday – she was going for more: not only was she starring in that hit on Corrientes Street with Solita – the weekend performance had already been suspended because she was not feeling well – but she was planning her agenda for the recording of the second season of Nada, the Disney+ series in which he shared the poster and scenes with Robert De Niro.

And I was also savoring the feedback from those who knew how to value the film adaptation of Lezama Parkthe film directed by Juan José Campanellawhich has been available on Netflix since early March. There he fights an acting duel with Eduardo Blanco, with a masterful technical tieand they revalidate the success they had together in theater with that same story.

The Betoas his friends and family affectionately called him, fulfilled 86 years old last Saturday. He was born on April 18, 1940 in Dock sud and was recorded as Adalberto Luis Brandonihence the colloquial Beto. At 13 years old, his family He moved to Núñez, an ideal neighborhood to show off the colors inherited from his fatheramong other inheritances.

River fan since childhoodhe dreamed of being a soccer player, but little by little he hung up his worn-out cleats in the pasture. AND No Sunday at noon he failed to go to the field to delight in the magic of his first idol.the one whom in several notes I remembered with the song of “People, people, people no longer eat to see Walter Gómez”. The memory of the Uruguayan striker moistened his vision and those blue eyes became even more endearing. The thing is that, in addition to everything, Brandoni was from those who held his gaze, always and, if necessary, approached his interlocutor, to emphasize what he was saying: whether it was a loving return or a powerful phrase.

Coming from a humble family, as a teenager he knew he wanted to be an actor. He trained and was able to debut in theater in 1962, a year before appearing for the first time on television, a medium that had him in hits such as my brother in lawnext to Ricardo Darin., in the remake of that television glory that they had made Osvaldo Miranda and Ernesto Bianco in 1976.

Was general secretary of the Argentine Association of Actors between 1974 and 1983. A member of the Radical Civic Union (UCR), in 1997 he was elected National Deputy for the Province of Buenos Aires. In 2005 he joined the list as a candidate for senator for the UCR for the province of Buenos Aires in the legislative elections.. The formula obtained 8.04% of the votes and achieved fourth place, so it could not access the seat.

In 2007, in the elections for governor of the Province of Buenos Aires, He joined the formula as Ricardo Alfonsín’s vice on the UCR list. In 2021, he was a pre-candidate for national deputy for the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, joining the “Adelante Ciudad” list of Together for Change. And in 2023 he was elected Mercosur parliamentarian in the Parlasur elections in Argentina.

As for his artistic career, he knew how to divide himself between TV, cinema and theater. On the big screen he starred in both comedies and dramas, many of which had a deep impact with delicate stories, such as The truce and The rebellious Patagonia (1974), Realize (1984), Tute Cabrero (1968) and Made in Argentina (1987).

The film comedy had him as the protagonist of collector’s items such as Waiting for the float (1985 and how to forget your “three empanadas”), The tale of the weasels (2019) and a hundred times I shouldn’t (1990). In total he worked in 62 films, almost all box office hits.

And the small screen raised the bar with its compositions in my brother in lawin Hustlerin A rooster for Aesculapiusin The pretty pagein more than 55 titles in which His enviable gestural mask allowed him to wander through various genres.from the classic comedy my brother in law to the darkness of Conurbano in the skin of Aesculapius, who was killed at the end of the first season, a questionable decision. A rooster without Aesculapius is not the same as a story with Brandoni.

The theater also had him stepping on the boards with drama classics and more works from the commercial circuit. His name was, as it is said in the artistic portfolio, “ticket cutter”. How many times have we listened to one of his works in the queue? “I want two tickets for Brandoni’s.”

“Do you know what’s going on? I I had the joy of being able to play in the street without danger, the street was the block and the outskirts were the block. Mom was whistling through the kitchen window and I was going to drink milk“, he told Clarion in an interview ten years ago, under a jacaranda tree in Plaza San Martín near his apartment.

-If we look back, what do you see? (this chronicler asked him that time)

-I see a boy who was not virtuous in the pasture, but he ran all the balls. I see a boy glued to the radio. I listened to everything, questions and answers, theater series, the comedy programs that were on prime time, with Fidel Pintos, Niní Marshall, Pepe Iglesias, Luis Sandrini, radio plays… See? I did everything in life, but I was left with the desire to do radio drama. It’s a genre that I always liked. I think there is a need for a bit of fiction on the radio, and I am sure that people would adopt it. It would be a nice haven in the middle of this maelstrom of news.

Among his possessions was the “recitation disk, said tangoswith titles like my sad night and Bog”.

Until the pre-pandemic days he didn’t see himself working in streaming: “I feel like series are not for me. I am from the era of traditional media, of watching a movie in the cinema and watching a program at a certain time.“, he told Clarion seven years ago.

Without fiction on TV and with that capacity for adaptation that it had to “let the making machine not stop”he said, pointing to his head, made Nada, an audience hit and, at the same time, a paradox for a man who in 85 years did everything.