Manuel Summers

{{Short description|Spanish film director, screenwriter and actor}}

{{Infobox person

| image = Manuel Summers-tarjeta del Sindicato Nacional del Espectáculo-19741001 (cropped).jpg

| name = Manuel Summers

| birth_name = Manuel Summers Rivero

| birth_date = {{birth date|1935|3|26|df=yes}}

| birth_place = Sevilla, Spain

| death_date = {{death date and age|1993|6|12|1935|3|26|df=yes}}

| death_place = Sevilla, Spain

| occupation = Film director, screenwriter

| spouse =

| yearsactive = 1959–1988

}}

Manuel Summers Rivero (26 March 1935 – 12 June 1993) was a Spanish film director, screenwriter and actor.

Biography

Summers was born in Seville, to a father of English origin. His mother was from Spain. His father, Francisco Summers e Isern (1902–1990), was a Francoist lawyer who served as civil governor of the provinces of Huelva in 1952–1956 and of Granada in 1956–1960. Manuel had two brothers, Francisco (born 1933) and Guillermo (born 1941), both journalists.

Summers moved to Madrid at a young age, where he worked as a journalist and caricaturist before enrolling as a student at Madrid's Institute for Cinematographic Sciences in 1957. He graduated from the institute with a diploma in 1959. Summers' earlier films, such as Del rosa al amarillo (1963) and La niña de luto (1964), have been described as bittersweet comedies with satirical undertones, and can be situated as examples of the "new Spanish cinema" of the 1960s. Problems with censorship and lack of popular success led Summers to gradually abandon the critical features of his earlier works as a director, and he went on to direct lighter comedies from the late 1960s. In total, Summers would direct twenty feature films during his career.{{cite web |title=SUMMERS, MANUEL |url=https://www.andalupedia.es/p_termino_detalle.php?id_ter=19165 |website=Andalupedia |publisher=Junta de Andalucía |access-date=1 June 2024}}

From 1960, Summers was married to Consuelo Rodríguez Márquez. Together, they had three children: Manolo, David, and Lucía. David would become the lead singer of the pop group Hombres G; Manuel Summers' last two films as a director, Sufre Mamón (1987) and Suéltate el pelo (1988), are centered around the group, and Summers also directed several of the group's music videos. He also had a daughter, Cheyenne Summers (born 1977), a voice actress, in a later relationship with the actress Beatriz Galbó (born 1951).{{cite news |last1=Román |first1=Manuel |title=La irregular vida amorosa del injustamente olvidado Manuel Summers |url=https://www.libertaddigital.com/chic/corazon/2018-02-18/la-irregular-vida-amorosa-del-injustamente-olvidado-manuel-summers-1276613992/ |access-date=1 June 2024 |work=Chic |date=18 February 2018}}

He died in Sevilla on 12 June 1993 aged 58 from colorectal cancer.{{cite news |url=http://hemeroteca.lavanguardia.com/preview/1993/06/14/pagina-31/34715275/pdf.html |title=Muere a los 58 años el humorista y director de cine Manuel Summers, víctima de un cáncer |newspaper=La Vanguardia |language=es |date=14 June 1993 |access-date=5 March 2019 |page=31 |first=Lluis |last=Bonet Mojica}}

Filmography

=Filmography as Film Director=

=Filmography as actor=

File:Manuel Summers-tarjeta del Sindicato Nacional del Espectáculo-19741001.jpg

=Filmography as producer=

  • La niña de luto, by Manuel Summers.

=Filmography as screenwriter=

  • Del rosa al amarillo, by Manuel Summers.
  • Urtáin, el rey de la selva... o así, by Manuel Summers.

References

{{Reflist}}