Biography
Eduardo Machado was born in Havana, Cuba, in 1953. He is the son of Othon (an accountant who died in 2007) and Gilda (Hernandez) Machado. With his brother Jesus he emigrated to the United States without his parents at the age of eight in 1961 as part of Operation Pedro Pan, which brought Cuban children to the United States in the early part of Fidel Castro's rule in Cuba. He lived with his aunt, uncle, and cousins in Hialeah, Florida until his parents were able to emigrate to California. He is still a Cuban citizen, and has held a U.S. green card since he emigrated.
Machado started acting professionally in California at the age of 17 and became a member of the Screen Actors Guild at 20. He studied acting in Van Nuys, CA with David Alexander. He started writing plays under the tutelage of María Irene Fornés in 1980, and moved to New York City in 1981.
Machado was married to Harriett Bradlin when he was 19 years old and she was 40; they were separated in the mid-1980s but never divorced. She died in 2007. He is now openly gay. Machado first returned to Cuba in 1999 and has returned to Cuba several times since then. He has taught playwriting at Columbia University, where he was the head of the graduate playwriting program, and he now teaches at New York University, where he is head of playwriting.
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