Francisco Rabal
Spanish actor (1926–2001)
Francisco Rabal Valera (8 March 1926 – 29 August 2001), popularly known as Paco Rabal, was a Spanish actor. His career spanned more than 200 film and television roles, between 1942 and 2001. He received numerous accolades both in Spain and abroad, including the Cannes Film Festival's Best Actor Award and the Goya Award for Best Actor.
Rabal was best known internationally for his collaborations with director Luis Buñuel, with Ronald Bergan writing "most of his other major roles he carried the heady, perverse whiff of the great surrealist director with him." He worked with many other notable directors, including Carlos Saura, Pedro Almodóvar, William Friedkin, Michelangelo Antonioni, Claude Chabrol, Luchino Visconti, and Gillo Pontecorvo.
One of Spain's most-loved and acclaimed actors during his lifetime, he also was known for his commitment to human rights and other social causes.
Early life
Rabal was born in Águilas, a town in the south-western part of the province of Murcia. In 1936, after the Spanish Civil War broke out, Rabal and his family left Murcia and moved to Madrid. Young Francisco had to work as a street salesboy and in a chocolate factory. When he was 13 years old, he left school to work as an electrician at film studios Estudios Chamartín. Rabal got some sporadic jobs as an extra.
“Francisco Rabal” enters the record as spanish actor (1926–2001). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Francisco, Rabal and Spanish can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“Francisco Rabal” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Francisco, Rabal and Spanish provides the most credible route into that argument.
The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 19, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q343299. VIAF identifies the subject as 79156441. The Library of Congress control number is n95110508. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1926, 2001, 1942 and 1936.
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This entry incorporates text from “Francisco Rabal” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.