Actor Ruy de Carvalho, aged 98, has been hospitalized since Friday following a mild stroke but is in stable condition, the actor’s daughter revealed to Lusa.
“On Friday, and because he wasn’t feeling very well, our father was hospitalized. After carrying out tests, the doctors detected that he had suffered a slight stroke, and he is in a clear recovery and in a stable situation, but remains hospitalized under observation, as he is three months away from turning 99”, added Paula Carvalho, highlighting that her father is the oldest active actor in the world.
The actor’s daughter did not specify the location or the hospital where her father was hospitalized for reasons of “preservation of privacy”, adding that “any and all information about his health status” will be provided by her.
The actor’s hospitalization forced the cancellation of performances of the play he stars in at the Centro Cultural Malaposta, in Olival Basto (Odivelas), “The Mousetrap”, one of the stories that literature experts consider “one of the most incredible” by Agatha Christieon stage for over 70 years and which has broken box office records all over the world, being registered in the Guinness Book of Records, as the play on stage for the longest number of years.
It is the second time that the actor stars in this story, although playing different characters. The first time he took to the stage with “The Mousetrap”, in the 1960s, Ruy de Carvalho was paired with actress Maria Dulce. Armando Cortez, João Villaret, Rogério Paulo and Lili Neves (still alive and residing at Casa do Artista) were, among others, the actors with whom he acted at the time.
In this second entry into Agatha Christie’s text, Ruy de Carvalho is directed by Paulo Sousa Costa, in a Yelolowstar production premiered in 2020 and in which the protagonist of “King Lear” He starred alongside his grandson Henrique de Carvalho.
After performances were interrupted due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the play has been on stage ever since, touring several Portuguese locations, Madeira and the Azores and venues that are almost always sold out.
Performing “The Mousetrap” are also Elsa Galvão, João Baptista, João Vilas, Luís Pacheco, Sara Cecília, Sérgio Moura Afonso and Sofia de Portugal.
Rui Alberto Rebelo Pires de Carvalho, better known as Ruy de Carvalho, was born on March 1, 1927, in Lisbon, and has had a career spanning 83 years in a career that brings together theater, cinema, radio and television.
Ruy de Carvalho started in theater, as an amateur, at the age of 15, in the play “O Jogo para o Natal de Cristo”, by Luiz Francisco Rebello, premiered at Teatro da Trindade, in Lisbon, by the then Teatro da Mocidade Portuguesa group, directed by Francisco Ribeiro, better known as Ribeirinho.
The first time the actor performed was in July 1936, at the age of nine, at the Teatro Municipal da Covilhã.
On February 28, 2023, on the eve of the premiere of the play “Ruy, a historia due”, in an interview with Lusa held in the Taguspark auditorium, in Oeiras, the actor confessed that he will continue to work and only for “when he dies”.
“Only when I die will I stop, and that takes a second”, said Ruy de Carvalho at the time, assuring that only then “the girl watching” will “go away” from you.
(News corrected: the actor’s daughter corrected the information stating that Ruy de Carvalho suffered a stroke, not a heart attack as initially reported)