Geraldo Del Rey was born in Ilhéus, Brazil and studied dramatic art at
university in Salvador. While studying he was approached by director
Anselmo Duarte to play the role of Handsome in the movie Fünfzig Stufen zur Gerechtigkeit (1962), one
of the most important Brazilian movies of all time.
He was nicknamed "the Brazilian Alain Delon" due to his resemblance to
the famous French actor.
After 'O Pagador de Promessas', Del Rey took the lead role in two
classics; A Grande Feira (1961) and Gott und der Teufel im Lande der Sonne (1964), the latter directed by the Brazilian
director Glauber Rocha.
In the mid-sixties Del Rey worked in television on series such as
'Anjos e Demônios', 'Sheik de Ipanema' and Véu de Noiva (1969). In the early
seventies his political activism led to him being fired from the Rede
Globo, a large Brazilian TV enterprise, and his career began a decline.
In the nineties he returned to the Rede Globo where he made a TV
series, Anos Rebeldes (1992), about the Brazilian dictatorship of the sixties and
seventies. Del Rey died from lung cancer in 1993.
