Journalist Mario Beut dies aged 89

Popular radio player Mario Beut Padrós (1933-2022) was a multifaceted man. In addition to radio, he devotes himself to theatre, dubbing, television and advertising. He died last Saturday in Barcelona at the age of 91. The journalist experienced professional conditions in which the exercise of a certain profession allowed him to devote himself to others who were very similar to him. In addition, Beut played the piano, he followed all his studies and not so long ago he still received his neighbors on Sunday mornings.

Born circumstantially in Arenys de Mar, he grew up in Barcelona’s Eixample, a city where football could still be played on the streets back then. Of course, the balls were made of cloth and paper. The practice he acquired doing amateur theater at the Salesian school allowed him to master the basic rules of declamation: pay attention to commas, silences, rhythms. He passed the merit tests that Luis Escobar’s company had called for. It wasn’t long until, by chance, Jaume Torrents, head of programs at Radio Barcelona, ​​saw him during a performance of The Glass Zoo in the dome of the Colosseum and offered him a job at the station. . It was a major turning point in his life. The first steps behind microphones were in radio plays.

Mario Beut had studied law, as well as music, but once he focused on his radio career, he worked on many channels such as Radio Miramar, Radio Barcelona, ​​La Ser and La Cope, where he was still active ten years ago. He quickly realized that broadcasters, especially foreign ones, naturally appreciated advertisers, but that they were above all looking for good filmmakers and screenwriters. Without wasting time, he began to write stories and narrations and sought sponsors to carry out his own programs. There was a time when he managed thirteen weekly shows on the Ser channel.

Mario Beut’s career as a voice actor is not so well known. In total, he put the voice in more than two hundred films. Among other famous faces of the big screen, he dubbed Jean-Paul Belmondo, Sidney Poitier, Jean-Louis Trintignant, Georg Peppard and Tony Curtis. Between the 1960s and 1970s, he made his debut on Televisión Española, presenting entertainment programs and competitions such as Do you know Spain?, Club Midday and Union fait la force. The latter became so popular that many cinemas delayed showing his films until the end of the television broadcast.

In 1958 he received the Ondas award for best actor for his work on Radio Barcelona, ​​​​and in 1960 the award for best announcer. Mario Beut has spent the last few years caring for his wife, who suffers from Alzheimer’s disease, of whom he was widowed shortly afterwards. Optimistic and empathetic by nature, he visited the press room of the vanguard in the summer of 2015 and he was still recognizable by the powerful, determined tone of voice that hit the airwaves. A serious man, friend of his friends, who used to think that you couldn’t go to work in a shirt and without a tie. He then compiled in a book a selection of the many interviews he had done on the radio.

Leave two children. The wake will take place this Monday at the Les Corts funeral home. The ceremony takes place at noon.