José Vicente Ferrer

Ferrer, José [Vicente] (1912–92), actor and director. Born in Puerto Rico but educated in New York and at Princeton, the rather well‐built, heavy‐featured, rich‐voiced performer made his professional debut in 1934 in a series of melodramas performed on a show boat cruising Long Island Sound. Broadway first saw him as a policeman in A Slight Case of Murder (1935), then he won critical attention in the roles of the gadfly Lippincott in Spring Dance (1936) and the meddling cadet Dan Crawford in Brother Rat (1936). Important supporting assignments followed as Jesse James associate Billy Gashade in Missouri Legend (1938), the white St. Julien in the black drama Mamba's Daughters (1939), and the poet Victor d'Alcala in Key Largo (1939). Ferrer triumphed as Lord Fancourt Babberley in a revival of Charley's Aunt (1940) and subsequently starred in two more highly praised revivals, playing Iago to Paul Robeson's Othello in 1943 and the title role in Cyrano de Bergerac (1946). “His Cyrano,” Brooks Atkinson noted, “has sardonic wit, a strutting style, a bombastic manner of speech and withal a shyness and modesty.” In 1948 Ferrer was appointed general director of the New York City Theatre Company at the City Center, producing and appearing in Volpone, Angel Street, a bill of Chekhov one‐act plays, The Alchemist, S. S. Glencairn, and The Insect Comedy. Other memorable performances of the period include Oliver Erwenter in The Silver Whistle (1949), frantic producer Oscar Jaffe in a revival of Twentieth Century (1950), and mental patient Jim Downs in The Shrike (1952), a play he also produced and directed. In 1953 he revived the work at the City Center, also playing in revivals of Charley's Aunt and Richard III, and as the Prince Regent in The Girl Who Came to Supper (1963). Thereafter, he appeared largely as replacements for original stars or in productions outside New York. He also directed and occasionally produced plays, including Strange Fruit (1945); Stalag 17 (1951); The Fourposter (1951); The Chase (1952); My Three Angels (1953); Oh, Captain! (1958), for which he was also co‐librettist; and The Andersonville Trial (1959).

The Costa Rican political leader José Figuéres Ferrer (born 1906) was president of Costa Rica and one of its most influential figures.

José Figuéres was born in San Ramon on Sept. 25, 1906, soon after his parents' arrival from Spain. He received most of his education in Costa Rica but also studied in the United States, as an unmatriculated student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Upon his return home Figuéres took over a small plantation in the mountains and during the 1930s devoted most of his attention to converting it into a modern enterprise. He gained some local fame for the progressive manner in which he treated his employees.

Figuéres gained sudden national fame when he bought radio time to denounce a riot on July 4, 1942, and the government of President Rafael Calderon Guardia as encouraging violence by Communists to divert attention from its own failures. In the middle of his talk he was arrested and was subsequently deported to Mexico.

Upon his return in 1944 Figuéres helped to organize the campaign of Leon Cortes, opposition candidate in the 1944 presidential election. The opposition claimed that government nominee Teodoro Picado won by fraud and insisted on special guarantees for the presidential poll of 1948. Figuéres and his colleagues, organized in the Social Democratic party, supported Otilio Ulate Blanco against former president Calderon Guardia, the government's nominee.

First Presidency

When Congress negated Ulate's victory, Figuéres started a successful revolt and became president of the provisional government. The Junta Fundidora de la Segunda República (Founding Junta of the Second Republic), the government headed by Figuéres, enacted a number of reforms. It nationalized all banks and set up a government electric power company and a housing institute. In November 1949 it turned the government over to Otilio Ulate, victor in the 1948 election.

During the conservative Ulate regime, Figuéres organized the Partido Liberación Nacional (PLN; National Liberation Party). He was the PLN candidate in the 1953 presidential election and was overwhelmingly elected. The principal innovation of the second Figuéres government was a new agreement with the United Fruit Company, the major exporter of the country's bananas, providing for a much larger return to the government from the company's profits. The administration also carried out ambitious public housing and electrification programs.

Figuéres's party did not win the next election because of a split in its ranks. However, in 1962 Liberación Nacional returned to power under President Francisco Orlich, a boyhood friend of Figuéres. PLN lost again at the end of Orlich's administration in 1966.

During these years Figuéres devoted most of his attention to private business affairs, although he remained a major figure in the PLN. He also traveled widely in Latin America, the United States, Europe, and Israel, and was again nominated for president by the PLN for the election of March 1970, which he won.

Figuéres had an importance which transcended his small country. He was a major spokesman for a broad range of Latin American public opinion and in many speeches and articles laid particular stress on the importance of the highly industrialized countries paying "just" prices for the foodstuffs and raw materials purchased from the underdeveloped nations as a possible substitute for economic aid.

Further Reading

There is no general study in English on Figuéres's career. However, a summary version is in Robert J. Alexander, Prophets of the Revolution: Profiles of Latin American Leaders (1962). Additional information can be found in John Martz, Central America: The Crisis and the Challenge (1959); Franklin D. Parker, The Central American Republics (1964); and Mario Rodriguez, Central America (1965).

Quotes:

"A man, when he wishes, is the master of his fate."

"I am more important than my problems."