Francisco Nicholson

Francisco Nicholson (19382016) was a Portuguese actor, director, playwright, songwriter and screenwriter. He was a co-founder of the Teatro Ádóque theatre cooperative. He wrote, directed, and acted in revues and was a writer of television soap operas, among many other accomplishments.

Early life Francisco António de Vasconcelos Nicholson was born on 26 June 1938, the son of John Francis Quintela Nicholson, who was born in Southsea, in Hampshire, England and his wife Maria Alice de Vasconcelos Marques. His father had an English father and a Portuguese mother. Coming from an artistic family, Nicholson started doing theatrical performances at the age of 14 while attending the prestigious Camões Secondary School in the Portuguese capital of Lisbon. On the strength of this he was invited to join a theatre group of other young artists. Facing opposition from his parents regarding his choice of a theatrical career he trained to join the Merchant Navy, but was clearly unsuited for this. He then studied drama in Paris at the Charles Dullin Academy, together with French actors such as Jean Vilar, Georges Wilson, and Gérard Philipe.

Professional career Nicholson made his professional debut as an actor and author with the Gerifalto Theatre Company, performing a children's play. Five other plays written by him for children were performed. He next worked with the National Theatre Company and the Studio Theatre of Lisbon, performing in works by authors such as August Strindberg, Bernard Shaw and Arnold Wesker. He was then invited by Raul Solnado to take part in the first play performed at the new Teatro Villaret in Lisbon, which was Nikolai Gogol's play, The Inspector General.

Nicholson was the author of Vila Faia, the first Portuguese TV soap opera. After the closure of the Ádóque in 1982 he moved to Teatro Maria Vitória, starring in a succession of revues, while also directing and performing in television programmes and, later, writing other soap operas. In 2014 he wrote a novel, Os Mortos não dão Autógrafos (The dead don't give autographs).

Francisco Nicholson married twice, first with Colette Liliane Dubois in 1969, with whom he had a daughter, the actress Sofia Nicholson, and second with the dancer and actress Magda Cardoso. He died on 12 April 2016, at the age of 77, in Lisbon, following complications from a liver transplant that he had undergone in 2011.