Life and Career
Morales was born in the Catalonian town of Lajas, Puerto Rico to parents of Sephardic roots. He started acting in radio and theater when he was only 14 years old. He started in television at its inception in 1954 working as an actor, writer and director. Some of his works have been: Desafiando a los Genios, Esto no tiene Nombre, La Tiendita de la Esquina, among many others.
During this time, he also started working with the political satire and comedy group Los Rayos Gamma, together with journalist Eddie López. The group still performs at theaters occasionally, and in the 80s and 90s had several shows on TV. In theatre, he has starred in over 30 plays, and he has written and directed five.
In the 1970s, he had the opportunity to work in Hollywood productions like Woody Allen's Bananas and Up the Sandbox with Barbra Streisand.
His first directing work was the film Dios los cría in 1980. The film was an important event in the Puerto Rican film history and received several awards. It was also selected as one of the 25 most significant films of Latin America. He followed it with Nicolás y los demás in which he also had the starring role. For this performance he received the Best Actor Award at the Cartagena de Indias Festival in Colombia, 1986.
His third film, Lo que le Pasó a Santiago, was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1990. In 1994, he followed it with Linda Sara which starred singer Chayanne and former Miss Universe Dayanara Torres. The film received the Award for Best Artistic Contribution at the Latin American Film Festival from Trieste, Italy; the People's Choice Award at the Mar del Plata Festival in Argentina; and the Best Script and Best Music Award at the Latin American Film Festival in New York.
In 2004, Morales directed the sequel to his first film, Dios los cría II, which was exhibited through WIPR-TV in Puerto Rico. In 2007, Angel, his latest full-length feature film was released to much critical praise. It was considered for submission for the 80th Academy Awards but it lost to Maldeamores in a voting of the Puerto Rico Film Corporation.
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