Osvaldo Cattone (25 January 1933 – 8 February 2021^[1]) was an Argentine actor who lived for over three decades in Peru and was considered one of the pioneer theater directors and actors of Peru.

Biography

Osvaldo Inocencio Cattone Ripamonti was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina on 25 January 1933.^[2] From the age of eight, he acted with a troupe called La Pandilla Marylin and at age nine was selected by Enrique Santos Discépolo to be part of the cast for a musical revue in the Teatro Casino, portraying the son of Aída Olivier. By 1952, he was both acting and directing in a production of La inocente de Lenormand which opened at the Teatro Regina. In 1953, he did two plays at the Instituto de Arte Moderno: Romeo and Juliet with Ricardo Vianna, Fanny Alberte, Jacinto Pérez Heredia and Alejandro Oster; and Elizabeth de Inglaterra (Elizabeth of England) by Ferdinand Bruckner with Josefina Melo, Juan Carlos Puppo, Tito Nóbili and José María Fra.^[3] In the early 1950s, he married his first wife, Enriqueta, from whom he quickly separated and then began a nine-year marriage to the actress Inda Ledesma.^[4] In 1954, Cattone traveled to Italy and enrolled in the Accademia Nazionale di Arte Drammatica Silvio D'Amico. Four years later, he graduated, became the first South American actor with a diploma and then returned to Argentina in 1959.^[2]

He returned to acting and worked on stage and on television in such productions as La visita de la anciana dama, Borrasca y Lysistrata, the Channel 13 telenovela Una vida para amarte with Gabriela Gili and Eva Franco and the series Carola y Carolina with Silvia and Mirtha Legrand.^[2] In 1964, Cattone began a relationship with Amelia Bence and directed her in "Doña Rosita, la soltera".^[5] He also toured throughout Argentina in the play Las mariposas son libres with Susana Giménez and Rodolfo Bebán. In 1973, he was hired to act in a Peruvian telenovela called Me llaman Gorrión and also did some theater acting in Peru. Then in 1976, he was hired to manage the Teatro Marsano^[2] and began producing theatrical works.^[4] Within three years he bought the theater and began nurturing the infant theater industry, inviting well-known Argentines such as Norma Aleandro, Amelia Bence, María Rosa Gallo, Eva Franco, Susana Rinaldi, China Zorrilla and others, to come and perform.^[6] Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Cattone produced both stage plays and television productions, such as "La loba" both a play and a television series in 1982 and La casa de enfrente a telenovela in 1985 both which starred Bence.^[7]

In 2005, after more than three decades of living and working in Peru, Cattone returned to Argentina to stage a play called Afectos compartidos, which starred Analía Gadé and Nati Mistral.^[8] In his later years, Cattone has returned to acting. He has completed 108 productions over his career.^[4] In 2015, he was starring in Justo en lo mejor de mi Vida.^[9]

He died from a prostate infection, fourteen days after his 88th birthday.^[10]

Credits

References

External links

• Osvaldo Cattone at IMDb