Roberto Escalada

Roberto Escalada born Aldo Roberto Leggero (4 July 1914-5 December 1986 in Buenos Aires) was a major Argentine film actor and cinema icon of the classic era.

Roberto Escalada began his career working on the radio and it was his voice that caught the attention of producers. On meeting him, film producers pleased by his physical appearance immediately put him in as a member of different movie casts.

It was director Carlos Hugo Christensen who used Escalada to create a new masculine Latinamerican archetype in "Sapho, story of a passion", a melodramatic, film in which he starred as the lover of the older Mecha Ortiz and other films partnering Olga Zubarry.

One of his most acclaimed films of the 1940s was Los Pulpos or The octopuses in English a film also directed by Christensen.

In 1950 Escalada was chosen to play the central role of a Bioy Casares' short novel that in cinema was named "Mr Oribe's crime". Then in 1955 he played a conviving businessman in "Ayer fue primavera" ("Yesterday it was spring") in which he worked under the directorship of Fernando Ayala.

However his life changed at the beginning of the 60s when he got married and start working on TV. As a heavy smoker he had some health conerns during the mid to late 60s and he spent the later years of this life in television picking up a number of different roles some of them very small.

He made over 55 film and TV appearances in Argentina between 1939 and 1980.

His health declined further in the early 1980s and he died on 5 December 1986 of a smoking related heart attack aged 72 in Buenos Aires.

Filmography

*"El diablo metió la pata" (1980) dir. Carlos Rinaldi.
*"Hormiga negra" (1979) dir. Ricardo Alberto Defilippi.
*"Un idilio de estación" (1978) dir. Aníbal Uset.
*"Los irrompibles" (1975) dir. Emilio Vieyra.
*"Clínica con música" (1974) dir. Francisco Guerrero.
*"El profesor tirabombas" (1972) dir. Fernando Ayala.
*"Nino" (1972) dir. Federico Curiel.
*"Con alma y vida" (1970) dir. David José Kohon.
*"El mundo es de los jóvenes" (1970) dir. Julio Porter.
*"Los debutantes en el amor" (1969) dir. Leo Fleider.
*"El profesor hippie" (1969) dir. Fernando Ayala.
*"Viaje de una noche de verano" (1965).
*"Esta noche mejor no" (1965) dir. Julio Saraceni.
*"Dos quijotes sobre ruedas" (1964) dir. Emilio Vieyra.
*"La familia Falcón" (1963) dir. Román Viñoly Barreto.
*"Culpable" (1960) dir. Hugo del Carril.
*"La sombra de Safo" (1957) dir. Julio Porter.
*"Pecadora" (1956) dir. Enrique Carreras.
*"De noche también se duerme" (1956) dir. Enrique Carreras.
*"Ayer fue primavera" (1955) dir. Fernando Ayala.
*"Vida nocturna" (1955) dir. Leo Fleider
*"La bestia humana" (1954) dir. Daniel Tinayre.
*"Sucedió en Buenos Aires" (1954) dir. Enrique Cahen Salaberry.
*"El vampiro negro" (1953) dir. Román Viñoly Barreto.
*"Armiño negro" (1953) dir. Carlos Hugo Christensen.
*"No abras nunca esa puerta" (1952) dir. Carlos Hugo Christensen.
*"Sala de guardia" (1952) dir. Tulio Demicheli.
*"De turno con la muerte (1951) dir. Julio Porter.
*"Cartas de amor" (1951) dir. Mario C. Lugones.
*"Una viuda casi alegre" (1950) dir. Román Viñoly Barreto.
*"El crimen de Oribe" (1950) dir. Leopoldo Torres Ríos.
*"Morir en su ley" (1949) dir. Manuel Romero.
*"Se llamaba Carlos Gardel" (1949) dir. León Klimovsky.
*"¿Por qué mintió la cigüeña?" (1949) dir. Carlos Hugo Christensen.
*"La gran tentación" (1948) dir. Ernesto Arancibia.
*"La muerte camina en la lluvia" (1948) Carlos Hugo Christensen.
*"Una atrevida aventurita" (1948) dir. Carlos Hugo Christensen.
*"Los pulpos" (1948) dir. Carlos Hugo Christensen.
*"El jugador" (1947) dir. León Klimovsky.
*"Madame Bovary" (1947) dir. Carlos Schlieper.
*"Treinta segundos de amor" (1947) dir. Luis Mottura.
*"Un beso en la nuca" (1946) dir. Luis Mottura.
*"Cinco besos" (1945) dir. Luis Saslavsky.
*"El canto del cisne" (1945) dir. Carlos Hugo Christensen.
*"Veinticuatro horas en la vida de una mujer" (1944) dir. Carlos Borcosque.
*"Safo, historia de una pasión" (1943) dir. Carlos Hugo Christensen.
*"Pájaros sin nido" (1940) dir. José Agustín Ferreyra.
*"El matrero" (1939) dir. Orestes Caviglia.
*"Doce mujeres" (1939) dir. Luis J. Moglia Barth.

External links

*