Alfonso Arau

'Alfonso Arau' (qv) has had a long and fruitful career both in front of and behind the camera and is one of the most prominent filmmakers of the Latino community in Hollywood. He was a drama disciple of 'Seki Sano' (qv)--a Japanese teacher, classmate of 'Lee Strasberg' (qv) with 'Konstantin Stanislavski' (qv) in Russia--and traveled the world from 1964 to 1968 with his one-man show, "Pantomime Happy Madness", after studying with 'Etienne Decroux' (qv) and 'Jacques Lecoq' (qv) in Paris.A renowned writer-producer-director-actor in theater and films for more than 20 years, in 1969 he directed his first feature film, _El águila descalza (1971)_ (qv), in which he also starred. He has directed many films in Mexico, among them _Inspector Calzonzin (1974)_ (qv) and _Mojado Power (1981)_ (qv). He has received six Arieles--the Mexican equivalent of the Oscar--and numerous international film awards.Arau has acted in a number of Mexican and Hollywood films, including _The Wild Bunch (1969)_ (qv), _El Topo (1970)_ (qv), _Mojado Power (1981)_ (qv), _Used Cars (1980)_ (qv), _Romancing the Stone (1984)_ (qv), _Three Amigos! (1986)_ (qv) and _Committed (2000)_ (qv). In addition to _Como agua para chocolate (1992)_ (qv), his directing credits include _A Walk in the Clouds (1995)_ (qv) with 'Keanu Reeves' (qv) and _Picking Up the Pieces (2000)_ (qv) with 'Woody Allen' (qv). For television he has done _The Magnificent Ambersons (2002)_ (qv), based on the script of 'Orson Welles' (qv)' film version (_The Magnificent Ambersons (1942)_ (qv)) and the novel by 'Booth Tarkington' (qv).::Emilia Arau/emiliaag@aol.com (qv's & corrections by A. Nonymous)