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Axel Anderson
Axel Anderson
Born	Axel Levy; December 11, 1929; Berlin, Weimar Republic
Died	December 16, 2012 (aged 83); San Juan, Puerto Rico
Occupation	Actor

Axel Anderson (December 11, 1929 – December 16, 2012) was a German actor who was very popular in his adopted homeland of Puerto Rico.

Biography

Early life

Anderson was born Axel Levy to a Jewish family in Berlin, Germany. In 1936 Anderson's family escaped the Holocaust by emigrating to Paraguay. Due to political instability in Paraguay, Anderson's family soon moved to Argentina. Anderson started acting as a teenager, working at the Teatro Alemán Independiente, a small theater troupe mainly composed of German expatriates who performed in German.

During the 1950s, Anderson moved his young family, including wife Helena,^[1] to Bogotá, Colombia where he worked in theater. The family later moved to the Dominican Republic. During his time in the Dominican Republic, Anderson reportedly clashed with the politics of the Rafael Trujillo regime, being forced to emigrate one more time. He and his family settled in Puerto Rico where they have remained ever since.

Career

Anderson made his debut in Puerto Rican television with a sitcom named Qué Pareja, a local version of I Love Lucy. He also performed in theater and other short television productions. The actor quickly established himself as a leading man, landing several leading roles in local novelas or soap operas. Early in his career, he starred in a novela titled Cuando los hijos condenan in which Anderson and co-star Marta Romero shared the first on-screen kiss in the history of Puerto Rican television.

Anderson also starred in one of the first major motion pictures produced in Puerto Rico, Maruja. His film career continued with roles in Spanish and U.S. films, including Battle of the Bulge (1965) and Bananas (1971). He also participated in the Spanish dubs of several Hollywood films of the 1940s and 1950s as well as of many American TV shows.

In his last 20 years, Anderson remained one of the leading actors in Puerto Rico and continually acted in major local and international productions, including a small role as the bank director in the Sylvester Stallone thriller Assassins.

Anderson (lyrics) and Tony Croatto (music) co-wrote Agüeybaná, a song dedicated to the memory of the most important Taino "Cacique" of the pre-colonial Puerto Rico, recorded by Nelly y Tony and later by Haciendo Punto En Otro Son, which became a major hit in the 70s.

Anderson died on December 16, 2012, in San Juan, Puerto Rico.^[2]

Filmography

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1944	The Master Race	Nazi Officer	Uncredited
1944	An American Romance	Immigrant	Uncredited
1959	Maruja	Jean Pierre
1959	El Otro Camino
1963	Thunder Island		Uncredited
1964	Aquella joven de blanco
1965	Finger On the Trigger	McNamara
1965	Battle of the Bulge	German Army messenger
1970	The Delta Factor
1971	Bananas	Man Tortured
1977	Mi aventura en Puerto Rico
1993	La guagua aérea	Padre Gautier
1994	Desvío al paraíso	Clark
1995	Manhattan Merengue!	Super
1995	Assassins	Bank President
1996	The Disappearance of Garcia Lorca	Ortega
1998	The Face at the Window	Uncle Pablo
1998	Undercurrent	Carlos Rivera Sr
1999	Paging Emma	Charlie
1999	Paradise Lost	General Díaz
2001	Entre los dioses del desprecio
2003	Celestino y el vampiro	Siegfried Von Krank
2004	Desamores	Casimiro Leyva
2005	Judíos en el espacio o ¿Por qué es differente esta noche a las demás noches?	Mauricio
2005	Taínos	Mr. Cordero (Sara's Grandfather)
2006	Entremedio	Cesar / Dr. Gutierrez
2007	The Reaping	the Blind Man
2011	El Detective Cojines	Viejo Rico
2012	Los condenados	Michael Puttnam
2016	Riding 79	Cayin	(final film role)