But the work that gives a recognition, not only in your country, is the interviewer, function begins, as he said, “almost by obligation”, the same month of January 1959 that performs a series of interviews minions the overthrown Batista dictatorship, who were already in prison.
If the “bug” caught the radio firm since his teens, he took the tape recorder to interview for the first time in as early as never left him more. First in his hometown and from 1960 in Havana his work goes through different stations and offices: program management, speaker of official events and interviews with revolutionary leaders and personalities from other countries.
But will its entry into Radio Havana Cuba, station which would founder, which mark its accelerated career as an interviewer from especially the program he founded and directed for fifteen years: “Formally Informal”, born in 1971 and under its direction until 1986.
A program of 27 minute broadcast daily for which he recorded the voices of thousands of people from all professions and trades, although in the last ten years were devoted mostly to the makers of artistic culture: writers, playwrights, historians , painters, musicians, filmmakers, and so on. Not only Cubans but also from Spain and Latin America.
Before “Formally Informal” worked as an announcer at the National Television News (1965-1966). It was reporter Russell Court sessions held in Sweden in 1967. And from that year to 1968, Europe correspondent and chief correspondent of Prensa Latina in Prague.
In the 1970s as a correspondent traveled to Nicaragua, Venezuela, Viet Nam, Mexico and Spain. In 1979 he joined the jury of the Casa de las Américas Prize of Testimony gender. In 1986 he founded Radio Taino which was its director until 1988.
For his meritorious work received 60 awards; including Raul Gomez Garcia Distinction, Distinction for National Culture, the Felix Elmuza Medal, the National Prize for Journalism José Martí by the life and work of the Alejo Carpentier Medal awarded by the State Council.
Some of the interviews were published in magazines in Cuba, Mexico, Chile, Argentina, Colombia, Brazil, Nicaragua, Portugal and Puerto Rico. In 1990 he published his first book titled as his radio show: “Formally Informal”, where he brought together 23 interviewees from Cuba, Spain, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Nicaragua.
In 1997 he was released a second title: “engraved words” which included just 12 Cuban personalities.
Posthumously they have seen the light three volumes of his extensive archive interviews of voices: “More engraved words” (2008), “I also love the cinema” (2011) – only interviews filmmakers – and in 2013 “After the guitar voice “with interviews only troubadours.
Thanks to its valuable archive keeps the program from 2004 VOICES in Havana Radio station. So that legacy remains in place, keeping alive his work so that new generations know of the life and work of thousands of people, many of whom are no longer but is his word, recorded by this man, this distinguished journalist, that indefatigable interviewer was called, called Orlando Castellanos Molina.
Translated by: Daysi Olano Fernandez
