Geraldo Del Rey

Biography

Geraldo Del Rey was born in Ilhéus, Brazil and studied dramatic art at university in Salvador. While studying he was approached by director Anselmo Duarte to play the role of Handsome in the movie The Given Word (1962), one of the most important Brazilian movies of all time. He was nicknamed "the Brazilian Alain Delon" due to his resemblance to the famous French actor. After 'O Pagador de Promessas', Del Rey took the lead role in two classics; A Grande Feira (1961) and Black God, White Devil (1964), the latter directed by the Brazilian director Glauber Rocha. In the mid-sixties Del Rey worked in television on series such as 'Anjos e Demônios', 'Sheik de Ipanema' and Véu de Noiva (1969). In the early seventies his political activism led to him being fired from the Rede Globo, a large Brazilian TV enterprise, and his career began a decline. In the nineties he returned to the Rede Globo where he made a TV series, Anos Rebeldes (1992), about the Brazilian dictatorship of the sixties and seventies. Del Rey died from lung cancer in 1993.