Oscar Álvarez, an actor with an extensive career in Cuban theater and film, has passed away in Miami

The Cuban actor Oscar Álvarez, with a lengthy career in theater and film on the Island, passed away in Miami at the age of 85 due to a cardiorespiratory arrest, as confirmed on Facebook by journalist Wilfredo Cancio Isla.

The news was announced by his wife, Isabel Cancio, a former actress of the National Puppet Theater of Cuba, who revealed that the death occurred on June 13.

Regarded as a character actor, Álvarez was a member of two of the most notable groups in the Cuban theater scene: Teatro Estudio and the experimental group Los Doce, both under the direction of Vicente Revuelta.

Los Doce, active between 1968 and 1970, brought together figures who would leave a significant mark on Cuban theater, including Flora Lauten, René Ariza, Ada Nocetti, José Antonio Rodríguez, Carlos Pérez Peña, and Carlos Ruiz de la Tejera.

That avant-garde experience, influenced by the theories of Polish director Jerzy Grotowski, was cut short around 1970 in the context of the ideological hardening imposed by the Cuban regime on culture.

In cinema, her career was characterized by a close friendship and collaboration with director Tomás Gutiérrez Alea.

His most remembered role was that of the character Oscar in "Hasta cierto punto" (1983), by Gutiérrez Alea, a critique of machismo in communist Cuba, where he played a liberal theater director who falls in love with a dockworker, a role portrayed by Mirta Ibarra.

His filmography also includes "Aquella larga noche" (1979) by Enrique Pineda Barnet; "Clandestinos" (1987) by Fernando Pérez; the co-production "Tesoro" (1987) by Diego de la Texera, as well as the short films "La cadena" (1978) and "Dolly back" (1986) by Juan Carlos Tabío.

Before leaving Cuba, Álvarez became involved with the dissident movement and joined the Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation, an organization founded in 1987 by the activist Elizardo Sánchez Santa Cruz.

He finally emigrated to the United States in 1989, in the years leading up to the collapse of the Soviet bloc, joining the wave of Cuban artists and intellectuals who chose dissent and exile.

Her death adds to the list of other Cuban actors who have passed away in exile in recent years, such as Zelma Morales and José Antonio Coro.