Akademik

(1926- )

   Mariano Ozores was born into a family of performers. Son of actor Mariano Ozores, both his brothers Antonio and José Luis were also actors (the latter was among the most beloved comic players of the 1950s), and the dynasty has continued with José Luis daughter, Adriana Ozores.

   Although critically dismissed, he is a fundamental personality in Spanish cinema. He directed almost a hundred films (many of which he also co-wrote) between his debut in the vaudeville Las dos y media . . . y veneno (Two and a Half . . . and Poison, 1959) and his last film El pelotazo nacional (The National Coup, 1993), thus covering the evolution of popular comedy in Spain from the beginning of desarrollismo, through the 1960s to landismo, sexy comedy, and reactionary political satires in the 1980s.

   Ozores started as a scriptwriter and TV director in the mid-1950s. Although his style was conventional, he tended to work with solid actors who, in his first decade as filmmakers, turned out solid comic performances, as for instance in the successful series with José Luis López Vázquez and Gracita Morales (Operación cabaratera [ Operation Cabaret Singer, 1967 ], Operación Mata-Hari [ Operation Mata-Hari, 1968 ]) and, in the early 1970s, with Paco Martínez Soria (Hay que educar a papá [ Bringing Up Dad, 1971 ] and El abuelo tiene un plan [ Granddad Has a Date, 1973 ]). In the late 1970s and early 1980s, he made 13 films with the hugely successful comic team of Andrés Pajares and Fernando Esteso, which turned out to be among the biggest box-office hits of the era.