Vivian El Jaber

Vivian El Jaber (born 17 November 1964, Buenos Aires) is an Argentine actress, comedian and playwright.^[1][2] She is best known for her roles on the sketch show Cha Cha Cha,^[3][4] as Débora in Guapas^[5][6] and as Isabel in Farsantes.^[7][8]

Vivian El Jaber
El Jaber in an ad campaign against gender violence (2015)
Born	(1964-11-17) 17 November 1964 (age 60) Buenos Aires, Argentina
Children	1
Awards	Martín Fierro Award (2007, 2013) Estrella de mar (2011, 2012)

Biography

El Jaber was born in Buenos Aires in 1964.^[1][2] Her father was of Syrian descent and her mother was of Portuguese and Galician descent.^[9][10] She has at least two sisters—one younger and one older—and her father taught mathematical physics.^[11][5] She was raised in Palermo, a neighborhood of Buenos Aires.^[3]

She studied theatre with Roberto Saiz and Norman Briski^[9][12] and made her on-stage debut in 1986 at age 19 in the one-woman play De la pupila para adentro, which she had written.^{[13][14][15][10]} She frequented Parakultural in her early career.^[15] In 1991, she received a Bienal Arte Jóven award for her one-woman show F. E. A..^{[16][15][9][17]} In addition to acting onstage — including in productions such as La llamada (2019),^[18] Julio César (2022) and Tootsie (2023)^[9] — El Jaber is an occasional playwright. When not writing alone, her most frequent writing collaborator is Mónica Gazpio.^[16] El Jaber was part of the main cast of Martín Bossi's Impostor plays for five seasons.^[19][20]

El Jaber was a cast member of the sketch show De la cabeza in the early 1990s^[9] and was the only woman to remain on the cast of Cha Cha Cha until the end of its run.^{[14][21][10][3]} She later worked on Patito Feo as Dorinha (2007-2008),^[11][9] Alguien que me quiera as Coca (2010-2011),^[1] Farsantes as Isabel (2013-2014)^[7][15] and Guapas as Débora.^[19][5] In 2014, El Jaber appeared in an ad campaign against gender violence with Soledad Silveyra, Guillermina Valdés, and Laura Natalia Esquivel.^[22] She also played María in the 2024 film The Penguin Lessons and called working with Jonathan Pryce and Steve Coogan a "dream come true."^[11]

Personal life

El Jaber has one daughter, Calia (born ca. 2010).^[10][15][23] She has had three major relationships in her life, each lasting seven years, with only one leading to marriage when she was age 21.^{[13][7][10][23]} She is a longtime resident of Villa Devoto^[9][23] and has a home in Miramar, where she has a painting studio.^[9][11][5]

Filmography

Film

Year	Title	Role	Refs
2001	Edificio sur	Vecina	[citation needed]
2002	Rosca de pascua	Silvia	[citation needed]
2003	El 48	Mirta[citation needed]	[16]
	Chiche bombón	Hija chusma[citation needed]	[16]
2005	Limonada	Vendedora	[citation needed]
2007	Tocar al cielo	Sandra[citation needed]	[16]
	El cine de Maite		[16]
2008	Todos aquellos	Justina	[citation needed]
2010	Pastelitos	Abuela	[citation needed]
2011	Un cuento chino	Rosa	[11][1][24]
2012	Matadera	Julisa	[citation needed]
2013	El loro y el cisne	Celina	[citation needed]
2017	Casa Coraggio	Samira	[citation needed]
2019	Delfín	Silvana	[citation needed]
2020	Muertos infectados	Rita	[citation needed]
2021	En la cabeza de papá	Marta	[25]
	Cuarto B	Limpiadora	[citation needed]
2022	Alerta disparo	Marcia	[citation needed]
	Amor del mercado	Claudia	[citation needed]
2023	Casi muerta	Dra. Rey[citation needed]	[1]
	El brillo de la mujer	Mujer madura	[citation needed]
2024	The Penguin Lessons	María	[11]

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes	Refs
1990	Estafa de amor	Matilde Pascual		[citation needed]
1992	La bonita pagina	Telma		[citation needed]
1992-1993	De la cabeza	Various		[9][16]
1992, 1995-1997	Cha Cha Cha	Various		[10][11][16][4]
1996	Como pan caliente	Amalia		[citation needed]
1997	Mía sólo mía	Nelida "Nelly" Contreras[citation needed]		[16][1]
	El arcangel	Soledad Guevara		[citation needed]
1998	Gasoleros	Dina[citation needed]		[16]
1999	Trillizos ¡dijo la partera!	Herminia[citation needed]		[16]
2000	Tiempo final	Viviana "Vivi"[citation needed]	Episodio: "El autografo"[citation needed]	[16][8]
	Estación de noche	Teresa		[citation needed]
2001	Cancheritos	Barbara[citation needed]		[26]
	Cuatro amigas	Cynthia[citation needed]		[16][8]
2002	Máximo corazón	Graciela[citation needed]		[16][8]
2004	Los de la esquina	Zulma Reyes[citation needed]		[16][8]
	Mosca & Smith	Perla		[citation needed]
2005	Los Roldán	Mara[citation needed]		[16][8]
	Floricienta	Ivonne[citation needed]		[16][8]
	Botines	Mucama[citation needed]	Episode: "Acorralados"[citation needed]	[16][8]
2006	Amas de casa desesperadas	Griselda		[citation needed]
	No hay 2 sin 3	Various		[16][27][8]
	Palermo Hollywood Hotel	Various		[16][28]
2007-2008	Patito Feo	Dorinha		[11][9][16][29][8]
2010-2011	Alguien que me quiera	Brenda "Coca" Reinoso		[30][1][8]
2012	El Pueblo del Pomelo Rosado	Etelvina Rosso		[citation needed]
2013-2014	Farsantes	Isabel de Labrápulos		[10][11][15][1][7][8]
2014-2015	Guapas	Débora Spritz		[10][5][6][19][1][8]
2015	Viudas e hijos del Rock & Roll	Martita Cano		[5][31][6]
2016	Educando a Nina	Selva Juárez		[32][5][1][8]
2018	La caída	Mónica[citation needed]		[33][8]
2019	Argentina, tierra de amor y venganza	Alfreda Sforza		[5][34][8]

Theatre

Year	Title	Role	Writer	Director	Theatre	Notes	Refs
1986	De la pupila para adentro		Vivian El Jaber	Roberto Saiz		One-woman play	[16][35][14][13]
1988	El frac rojo		Carlos Gorostiza				[36][37]
	La movida					Festival de Teatro Joven	[16]
	Las papakiriaquidas			Diego González			[16]
	El ojo		Luis Agustoni				[citation needed]
1990	Nosotras tres			Diego Kehrig	Caliban Theatre		[16][38]
1991-1993	F.E.A.		Vivian El Jaber		Liberarte	One-woman play	[16][17]
1995-1996	La cantante calva		Eugène Ionesco				[citation needed]
1998	Fin de siglo Cabaret		Jorge Leyes				[16]
2000	Ansata		Vivian El Jaber, Mónica Gazpio				[16]
2001	Derechas		Bernardo Cappa	José María Muscari			[16]
2002-2003	Té negro		Vivian El Jaber, Mónica Gazpio	Cecilia Massa	El Taller del Ángel		[16][39]
2003	Pagar el pato	Roma	Dino Armas	Patricia Pisani, Graciela Balletti		Also performed at the International Latino Cultural Center in Chicago	[16][14][40]
2006	El cuento del violin	Aunt	Gastón Cerana		Abasto Social Club		[16][41]
2010-?	"M" El impostor		Martín Bossi	Ana Sans and Manuel Wirzt	Broadway Theatre		[42]
2011-?	El impostor apasionado			Manuel Wirzt, Evelyn Bendjeskov	Teatro Auditorium		[43]
2014	La nueva autoridad	Betty	Mario Segade		Teatro General San Martín		[44][12][3]
2019	La llamada	Bernarda	Javier Ambrossi, Javier Calvo	Emiliano Dionisi	Teatro del Globo		[18]
2022	Julio César	Kasca	Shakespeare	José María Muscari	Cine Teatro El Plata		[9][45]
2023	Tootsie	Rita	Robert Horn	Mariano Demaría	Teatro Lola Membrives		[9][46]

Awards

In addition to the awards below, El Jaber was also nominated for Best Supporting Actress at the Hugo Awards in 2019 for La llamada.^[47]

Year	Award	Awarding body	Awarded for	Refs
1991	Bienal Arte Jóven award	City of Buenos Aires	F.E.A.	[16][9][15]
	Female Revelation on TV	Sin Cortes magazine	Cha cha cha	[16]
1993	Lápiz de Oro	Editorial Dossier		[16]
2005	Best performance		El cuento del violin	[16][8]
2007	Martín Fierro Award	Asociación de Periodistas de la Televisión y Radiofonía Argentina	Patito Feo	[8]
2010	ACE Award	Association of Latin Entertainment Critics	M - el imposter	[8]
2011	Estrella de mar: Comedic actress	Municipality of General Pueyrredón	"M" El impostor	[8]
2012			El impostor apasionado	[8]
2013	Martín Fierro Award: Best Supporting Actress	Asociación de Periodistas de la Televisión y Radiofonía Argentina	Farsantes	[48][19]

External links

Vivian El Jaber at IMDb