Armando Bó

For his grandson, the Argentine screenwriter and film director, see Armando Bó (screenwriter).

Armando Bó (3 May 1914 – 8 October 1981) was an Argentine film actor, director, producer, screenwriter and score composer. He began his career as an actor and producer during the Golden Age of Argentine cinema of the 1930s and 1940s. In 1956, Bó met Isabel Sarli and cast her as the lead actress in his film Thunder Among the Leaves (1957), in which she made the first full frontal nude in the history of Argentine cinema. Bó and Sarli became both romantic and commercial partners, and the duo turned to the sexploitation genre in the 1960s and 1970s, these films being considered emblematic of the genre.

Armando Bó
Armando Bó in the 1940s, photographed by Annemarie Heinrich
Born	(1914-05-03)3 May 1914 Buenos Aires, Argentina
Died	8 October 1981(1981-10-08) (aged 67)
Years active	1939 – 1979
Spouse	Teresa Machinandiarena ​ ​ (m. 1956)​
Partner	Isabel Sarli (1956–1981, his death)
Children	3, including Víctor Bó
Relatives	Armando Bó (grandson) Nicolás Giacobone (grandson)

Bó's son is the actor/producer Víctor Bó and his grandson is the screenwriter and director Armando Bó.

Biography

Bó began acting for film in 1939 in Ambición and made some 50 film appearances as an actor, but by the late 1940s he had already taken up an interest in film production and began as a director, producer, actor, and screenwriter in the early 1950s. He was involved in almost 100 different films during his career.

In June 1956, he met Isabel Sarli on a television show. He later offered her the opportunity to star in El trueno entre las hojas (Thunder in the Leaves). Bo tricked Sarli to appear naked in a scene in which she bathed in a lake, though she had previously been told she would wear a flesh-colored body stocking. The film became the first to feature full frontal nudity in Argentine cinema. Bo and Sarli became lovers and he continued to exploit her in his films, many, in which she was asked to perform sex acts on film always starring him as her lover. She became the primary star of his films until his death in 1981. Upon his death Sarli was given no rights to any of the films they made together.

Their films were controversial at the time and most of them were banned, but this ban led them to be even more successful. Films like Fuego (1969) and Fiebre (1970) reached the American and European markets. The banning of Fuego led to them moving into exile.^[1]

He was married to Teresa Machinandiarena, and had three children: María Inés, María Jesús, and Víctor. His son, Víctor Bó, was a prominent actor in Argentina during the 70s and 80s. His grandsons are Academy Award winners Nicolás Giacobone and Armando Bó Jr., credited as Armando Bó.

Filmography

Bó and Isabel Sarli in Una mariposa en la noche, 1976.

Year	Film	Role	Notes and Awards
1939	Ambition
	Chimbela
	...Y mañana serán hombres
1940	Un señor mucamo
	Nosotros, los muchachos
	Fragata Sarmiento
1941	Melodies of America
	El más infeliz del pueblo
	Mamá Gloria
	La maestrita de los obreros
	Si yo fuera rica
	Joven, viuda y estanciera	Invitado
	Cándida millonaria
1942	Tú eres la paz
	Story of a Poor Young Man
1944	The Abyss Opens
1945	Villa Rica del Espíritu Santo
	The Circus Cavalcade
1946	The Three Musketeers	D'Artagnan
1947	La caraba
	Si mis campos hablaran	Simon
1948	Su última pelea
	Pelota de trapo
1949	Con el sudor de tu frente
1950	Fangio, el demonio de las pistas
	Sacachispas
1951	My Divine Poverty
	Honour Your Mother
	En cuerpo y alma	Antonio Núñez
1953	Muerte civil
	El Hijo del crack	Héctor 'Balazo' López
1955	Adiós, muchachos
1956	El trueno entre las hojas
1958	Sabaleros
1959	...Y el demonio creó a los hombres
1962	Lujuria tropical
	La Burrerita de Ypacaraí
1963	Pelota de cuero
	La Diosa impura	Reinoso
1964	La mujer del zapatero
	La leona
1966	La tentación desnuda
1968	La mujer de mi padre	Jose
1969	Éxtasis tropical
	Fuego	Carlos
1970	Fiebre	Juan
1972	Intimidades de una cualquiera	Jose Luis
1973	La diosa virgen
	Furia infernal	Barbara's husband
1974	El sexo y el amor
1976	Insaciable
1977	Una mariposa en la noche
1979	El último amor en Tierra del Fuego

Legacy

Renowned filmmaker John Waters has claimed to be a big fan of Bó's filmography, and to have been influenced by it as well.^[2][3] Waters presented Bó's 1969 cult film Fuego as his annual selection within the 2002 Maryland Film Festival, and it was also a featured film in episode three of the Here! network original series John Waters Presents Movies That Will Corrupt You.