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Cover featuring Juan Torena and Blanca de Castejon starring in the hit-movie “El Impostor”.
Juan Garchitorena (24 March 1898 – 27 June 1983) was a soccer player and North American silver screen star from Manila in the Philippines. He belonged to the very prominent Basque mestizo Garchitorena clan of Manila and the Bicol.
He started playing for FC Barcelona in 1916 and also played in the Campeonato Regional de Catalunya. During that time he would also become the first recorded case of playing with a “false passport”. When Espanol were beaten 3-0 on Christmas Day 1916, they lodged a formal complaint and his foreign nationality came to light. He stayed nevertheless with the club until the end of the season and played in several friendly games. In later years he would turn out for FC Barcelona only on a sporadic basis.
Before the second world war, he made a name for himself in the Spanish language movie industry in Hollywood under his screen-name “Juan Torena”. He continued acting in American films through the 1950s and was a notorious “Latin Lover” who was romantically-linked with a.o. actress Myrna Loy! One of his last roles was in “American Guerrilla in the Philippines” in 1950.
He was also for sometime considered to be the first Argentine player in Spain. But while his parents had emigrated from Argentina to Manila, documents proved that he was actually a Filipino with a US passport (the Philippines being part of the USA before WW II).
34 x 25 cms, magazine, 24 pages.
1931
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