Fernando Siro

Fernando Siro (October 5, 1931 – September 4, 2006) was an Argentine film actor, film director and screenwriter.

Born Francisco Ángel Luksich in Villa Ballester, he developed an early interest in acting and in 1950 was given his first Argentine cinema role in El otro yo de Marcela, directed by Alberto de Zavalía. His deep voice and keen sense of timing earned him numerous radio drama roles during the 1950s, and later in the Channel 7 telenovela series, La tarde de Palmolive.

He earned renown for his 1965 screen adaptation of Dalmiro Sáenz's El pecado necesario. His film version of this work, Nadie oyó gritar a Cecilio Fuentes, marked his directorial debut and earned Siro a Silver Seashell at the San Sebastián International Film Festival. He remained in Spain until 1970, and starred as Julio Colón, the protagonist in a top-rated sitcom, La familia Colón.

Returning to Argentina, he appeared in Fernando Ayala's adaptation of historian Félix Luna's historical drama, Argentino hasta la muerte (1971), and directed the picaresque comedy Autocine mon amour (1972). He directed numerous comedies and musical films, which became popular in Argentina during the troubled 1970s, and would star in a number of these, notably with Jorge Porcel in Te rompo el rating (1981), and in Alejandro Azzano's tragicomic Venido a menos (1981).

Siro was also active in the theatre, playing over 60 roles in his career, notably in Leo Tolstoi's Anna Karenina, Jean-Paul Sartre's The Respectful Prostitute, Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire, Arthur Miller's A View From the Bridge, and Ken Ludwig's Lend Me a Tenor.

Among his notable roles in later years were for director Fernando Solanas in Sur (1987) and El Viaje (1992), in El mundo de Gasalla (Antonio Gasalla's television comedy skit series of the early 1990s), and in Orlando Posse's romantic comedy, Apariencias (2000). His last work as director was the regionalist Sapucay, mi pueblo (1997).

Siro and his wife and frequent co-star, Elena Cruz, were politically conservative. Their decision to join a small rally on March 24, 2001, in support of the former dictator in power during the height of the Dirty War, General Jorge Videla, led to their expulsion from the Argentine Actors Association.

He died of cancer on September 4, 2006, at age 74.