Gila, Miguel

▪ 2002

Miguel Gila Cuesta 

      Spanish comedian and film director (b. March 12, 1919, Madrid, Spain—d. July 13, 2001, Barcelona, Spain), skewered the dictatorship of Gen. Francisco Franco with mordant, low-key satire, notably in a series of monologues in the form of one-sided telephone “conversations.” Gila fought against Franco in the Spanish Civil War (1936–39). He was captured and escaped after a botched execution but was recaptured, imprisoned, and sentenced to four years' military service. In 1941 Gila began contributing satiric cartoons to the anti-Franco journal La Codorniz. He made his stage debut in 1951, filling in for another comedian who had taken ill. Gila made more than 30 films, recorded several comedy records, published books of humour and an autobiography, and was a favourite radio and TV performer throughout the Spanish-speaking world. From 1968 to 1985 he lived in self-exile in Buenos Aires, Arg., where he ran a theatre company and published the satiric La Gallina.

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