Raul Julia Biography

Raul Julia

The elegant and charismatic Raul Julia performed in musical theater in his native San Juan before moving to New York in 1964. There he acted in various Spanish language productions, including Joseph Papp's Macbeth, before making his Broadway debut in The Cuban Thing (1968) and becoming a familiar face on television, not least through a memorable stint on Sesame Street (1971). His breakthrough came in 1971 in Two Gentlemen of Verona, playing Proteus—one of his many Shakespearean roles—for which he won the first of his four Tony nominations. He has lent his extraordinary energy to many feature films, including Kiss of the Spider Woman (1985) and The Addams Family (1991).