1971 movie The French Connection. However, he could not remember the name of "that Spanish actor". Mistakenly, his staff hired another Spanish actor, Fernando Rey. Friedkin discovered that Rabal did not speak English or French, so he decided to keep Rey. Rabal had previously worked with Rey in Viridiana. Rabal did, however, work with Friedkin in the much less successful but Academy Award-nominated cult classic Sorcerer (1977), a remake of The Wages of Fear (1953). Throughout his career, Rabal worked in France, Italy and Mexico with directors such as Gillo Pontecorvo, Michelangelo Antonioni, Luchino Visconti, Valerio Zurlini, Jacques Rivette, Alberto Lattuada and Silvano Agosti. It is widely considered that Rabal's best performances came after Francisco Franco's death in 1975. In the 1980s, Rabal starred in Los Santos Inocentes - winning the Award for Best Actor at the Cannes Film Festival - in El Disputado Voto del Señor Cayo and also in the TV series Juncal. In 1989, he was a member of the jury at the 39th Berlin International Film Festival. In 1999 he played the part of Francisco Goya in Carlos Saura's Goya en Burdeos, winning a Goya Award for Best Actor. Rabal's final movie was Dagon, directed by Stuart Gordon. The film, which was released after Rabal's death in 2001, was dedicated to him. The dedication, which appears before the end credits, reads: "Dedicated to Francisco Rabal, a wonderful actor and even better human being." Rabal died in 2001 from compensatory dilating emphysema while on an airplane travelling to Bordeaux, returning from having received an Award at the Montreal World Film Festival. His death happened only a few weeks before he was due to collect the lifetime Donostia Award at the San Sebastián International Film Festival. The award was accepted by his grandson, Liberto Rabal, also an actor. Francisco Rabal is the only Spanish actor to have received an honoris causa doctoral degree from the University of Murcia. Murcia's Film Library and Cinematheque, Filmoteca Regional Francisco Rabal, created in 2004 as a meeting point for movie lovers, was named after him. Selected filmography La rueda de la vida (1942) - Bronquista de pelea en salón (uncredited) The Prodigal Woman (1946) El crimen de Pepe Conde (1946) Don Quijote de la Mancha (1947) - (uncredited) Alhucemas (1948) - Tostado (uncredited) Revelación (1948) The Honesty of the Lock (1950) - Ernesto María Antonia 'La Caramba''' (1951)Doubt (1951) - Rafael FigueroaMaría