José Bohr was born in Bonn, Germany, in 1901. His family emigrated to Chile and in 1911 settled in Punta Arenas, where they ran a restaurant, the Zur Himmelsleiter, and the Hotel Alemán.
As a teenager he played piano for silent films, wrote songs and shot film with his own camera: a local newsreel in 1919, the comedy "Mi noche alegre" in 1920, and a documentary on how Magallanes had grown. He also composed the hymn "Punta Arenas", still the city's anthem. In 1921 he left for Santiago.
From there he went on to Buenos Aires, where he wrote tangos and songs such as "Pero hay una melena" and "Y tenía un lunar", and then to the United States, where he starred in "Sombras de gloria", which Memoria Chilena calls the first Spanish-language film produced in Hollywood. In Mexico he directed more than thirty films, and back in Chile sixteen more, among them "El gran circo Chamorro".
Punta Arenas named him Hijo Ilustre, a favourite son, in 1976. He died in Oslo in 1994, and in 2002 the city council gave his name to the 1899 theatre on calle Magallanes: today it is the Teatro Municipal José Bohr.
