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Undoubtedly, Pedro Infante was, and still is, the idol of Mexico. Because of his movies (59 including 55 leading roles and four cameos), records (366 songs recorded between 1943 and 1956) and public appearances in Mexico and Latin America, Infante became a star and the most beloved human being in Mexican history. His fame and the phenomenon of his stardom hasn't been matched by any movie star in the years following his death. The main reason for this can be found in the extraordinary quality of his acting, his beautiful singing and something called "charm" that can't be learned or acquired. He was a natural actor, perfectly matched with all his costars, no matter if they were male or female, children or grandmothers. Although practically all his films were great box-office hits and still are shown on a daily basis on TV, the most popular of them were the "trilogy of bittersweet poverty"--Nosotros los pobres (1948), Ustedes, los ricos (1948) and Pepe El Toro (1953) and the comedies Los tres García (1947), ¡Vuelven los García! (1947), Los tres huastecos (1948), A.T.M.: ¡¡A toda máquina!! (1951), ¿Qué te ha dado esa mujer? (1951) and Dos tipos de cuidado (1953). He was the good friend, the good son, the romantic in love, the caring father, the sexy singer, the "macho" with a heart. He was capable of moving the feelings of men and women who found in him someone closely related to their lives. His death in a plane crash in 1957 is still one of the most remembered events in recent Mexican history. His popularity has grown even greater since then, reaching generations of Mexicans born after their idol was gone.- Actor
- Music Department
- Soundtrack
Jorge Alberto Negrete Moreno was born in Guanajuato, Mexico, on November 1911, and had five brothers. His father was a General, and when he retired the family moved to Mexico city, where he worked as a teacher amongst others at the Humboldt German school, thus allowing Jorge and brother David to study there, learning German, English, French and Italian (Jorge also studied native Mexican Language by himself). From there Jorge entered the military academy. At 18 he graduated with high degrees as Lieutenant of Cavalry and Administration and worked in a weapon factory, starting medical studies and becoming administrator at Puebla military Hospital. It was during his youth that he was diagnosed with an hepatic dysfunction (hepatitis C) that did not prevent him from smoking all of his life. In 1930 he started taking singing lessons from opera director José Pierson and in 1931 he started singing on the Mexican radio, adopted the name Alberto Moreno and finally retired from the Army. In 1935 he debuted onstage with musical plays in Roberto Soto's company as a stage extra (figurante), working amongst others in "Calles y más calles" at the Teatro Lírico. Then in 1936 he traveled to New York with a friend performing as The Mexican Caballeros for NBC. He also made a test for the Metropolitan Opera but declined when he was only offered a substitution post, and got under contract instead with Eliseo Grener Cuban orchestra (he is reported to be working as a waiter when the singer became ill and Negrete won the house). The next year he made his first film appearance in the Warner Brothers short "Cuban Nights", then came his first long-length feature in Mexico, the leading role in La madrina del diablo (1937). Fox put him under contract to make Spanish films, but the Actors Union reacted and the idea was abandoned. Later on he would at last make a Hollywood movie, United Artists' Fiesta (1941) a.k.a. "Gaiety" (1941).
During the shooting of his next film, La Valentina (1938) he met actress Elisa Christy. They married in 1940, and moved for some time to New York where Jorge wrote Spanish versions to English songs for Southern Music. Back to Mexico in 1941 he met Gloria Marín on the set of ¡Ay Jalisco... no te rajes! (1941) and separated from Christy, who was pregnant with Negrete's daughter Diana, born the following year. Negrete and Gloria Marín lived together for 10 years and adopted a girl, Goyita. In 1943 he starred in The Rock of Souls (1943) where he met María Félix, equally arrogant as himself so they had frequent quarrels on the set. He had another resounding success with Me he de comer esa tuna (1945). He toured South American countries to overcrowded theaters and also starred in some Spanish films as Jalisco canta en Sevilla (1949) or Teatro Apolo (1950). In 1952 he and María Félix met again shortly after he had left Gloria Marín, pride turned to love and they married that same year.
In Mexico his star quickly rose thanks to his strong screen presence and his manly, arrogant yet good-humored singing and romantic image, dressed in charro typical attire, hence his nickname "El Charro Cantor". Most of his films are known as "ranch comedies" (comedias rancheras) where this folkloric world came alive, often including ancient songs that connected with the audience. He had an onscreen rivalry with Pedro Infante who was a friend in real life. He became one of the main stars of his time, rousing mostly feminine multitudes wherever he went. He also founded the Mexican Movie Workers'Guild and leaded the National Actor's Guild (Asociación Nacional de Actores), which would bring him many troubles as frequently confronted to the official establishment. When Cuba was taken by a hurricane Negrete acted to raise funds for the damaged. In December 1953, when attending a boxing match in Los Angeles he suffered an acute gastroesophagical hemorrhage, from which he never regained consciousness.
As a singer Negrete had a fine, wide-ranged and well trained baritone voice that often resembled a tenor's one. His classical singing education made him equally apt to sing popular songs, zarzuela and operatic arias.- Actress
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Doubtlessly the most famous Mexican movie star, María Félix created a larger-than-life character: herself. La Doña, as the star was known after the character of her 1943 movie Doña Bárbara, starred in 47 movies, most of them forgettable except for her presence in them. More a star than an actress, she constructed an image of a tough woman, a sort of one-liner she-male that went beyond the traditional role of Latin American women. Her marriage to Agustín Lara the most popular Latin composer from the 30s to the 60s, was a great event itself. Her fame went beyond Mexico to Latin America, Spain, France and Italy. She always refused to learn English, so she never acted in any English language movie. That's the main reason why her fame was related almost exclusively to Latin countries. After her last film, she was linked to a number of film projects, but never came back to the screen. Her last performance was on a Mexican historic soap opera, in 1970.- Actor
- Music Department
- Composer
Luis Aguilar was born on 29 January 1918 in Mexico, D.F., Mexico. He was an actor and composer, known for Los chiflados del rock and roll (1957), Una aventura en la noche (1948) and Tres tristes tigres (1961). He was married to Rosario Gálvez and Ana María Almada Rubalcava. He died on 24 October 1997 in Mexico D.F., Mexico.- Actor
- Producer
- Director
Abel Salazar was born on 24 September 1917 in Mexico City, Distrito Federal, Mexico. He was an actor and producer, known for Los adolescentes (1967), The Brainiac (1962) and Valentín de la Sierra (1968). He was married to Rosita Arenas, Gloria Marín and Alicia Cardenas. He died on 21 October 1995 in Cuernavaca, Morelos, Mexico.- Actor
- Producer
Born in Mexican revolution times, Pedro Armendáriz was the first child of Mexican Pedro Armendáriz García-Conde and American Adele Hastings. He was raised in Churubusco, then a suburb of Mexico City, before the family traveled to Laredo, Texas. They lived there until 1921, the year Armendáriz' parents died. His uncle Francisco took charge of his education, and young Pedro went to the Polytechnic Institute of San Luis Obispo, California. There, he studied business and journalism. He graduated in 1931 and returned to Mexico City where he found work as a railroad employee, insurance salesman and tourist guide. He was discovered by director Miguel Zacarías when Armendáriz was reciting Hamlet's monologue (to be or not to be) to an American tourist in a cafeteria.
After that, Armendáriz began a brilliant career in Mexico, the United States and Europe. Together with Dolores Del Río and Emilio Fernández, Armendáriz made many of the greatest films in the so-called Mexican Cinema Golden Era: Wild Flower (1943), Bugambilia (1945), Maria Candelaria (1944), among others. He was considered a prototype of masculinity and male beauty. His green eyes and almost perfect features made him perfectly cast in any role he made. But it was his passion, force and acting abilities, combined with his quality of a gentleman what made him an instant favorite of great directors like John Ford, international costars like María Félix, Sean Connery or Susan Hayward, and his fans in Mexico and other countries.- Actor
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- Director
Joaquín Pardavé was born into the theatrical milieu, the son of a pair of stage actors. He was a popular stage actor and appeared in several silent films and some early sound features, but achieved his greatest fame in the early 1940s in films like México de mis recuerdos (1944) and El baisano Jalil (1942) (which was also the first picture he directed). In addition to acting, Pardavé directed and wrote films and also wrote songs, although he could not read music. Although many of his early roles were comedic in tone, he was also capable of drama, as in Ojos de juventud (1948). Pardavé married Soledad Rebollo in 1925, but the couple had no children. He suffered a stroke and died in July 1955.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Dolores del Rio was the one of the first Mexican movie stars with international appeal and who had meteoric career in the 1920s/1930s Hollywood. Del Rio came from an aristocratic family in Durango. In the Mexican revolution of 1916, however, the family lost everything and emigrated to Mexico City, where Dolores became a socialite. In 1921 she married Jaime Del Río (also known as Jaime Martínez Del Río), a wealthy Mexican, and the two became friends with Hollywood producer/director Edwin Carewe, who "discovered" del Rio and invited the couple to move to Hollywood where they launched careers in the movie business (she as an actress, Jaime as a screenwriter). Eventually they divorced after Carewe cast her in her first film Joanna (1925), followed by High Steppers (1926), and Pals First (1926). She had her first leading role in Carewe's silent version of Pals First (1926) and soared to stardom in 1928 with Carewe's Ramona (1928). The film was a success and del Rio was hailed as a female Rudolph Valentino. Her career continued to rise with the arrival of sound in the drama/romance Bird of Paradise (1932) and hit musical Flying Down to Rio (1933). She later married Cedric Gibbons, the well-known art director and production designer at MGM studios.
Dolores returned to Mexico in 1942. Her Hollywood career was over, and a romance with Orson Welles--who later called her "the most exciting woman I've ever met"--caused her second divorce. Mexican director Emilio Fernández offered her the lead in his film Wild Flower (1943), with a wholly unexpected result: at age 37, Dolores del Río became the most famous movie star in her country, filming in Spanish for the first time. Her association with Fernández' team (cinematographer Gabriel Figueroa, writer Mauricio Magdaleno and actor Pedro Armendáriz) was mainly responsible for creating what has been called the Golden Era of Mexican Cinema. With such pictures as Maria Candelaria (1944), Las abandonadas (1945) and Bugambilia (1945), del Río became the prototypical Mexican beauty. career included film, theater and television. In her last years she received accolades because of her work for orphaned children. Her last film was The Children of Sanchez (1978).- The legendary "granny of Mexican cinema" began her movie career when she was a 22-year-old teacher in a nun's school for girls. One day, young Sara's attention was attracted to a small building in downtown Mexico City. Inside it was Azteca Films, one of the very first Mexican film production companies, about to produce its first feature: Alma de sacrificio (1917). The leading lady was stage actress turned film producer (and writer, actress, editor and, maybe director) Mimí Derba. After some screening tests, young Sara was offered a contract. She accepted although she didn't say a word in her college until many months after. Her early experiences in movies lead her to a career in stage. She only made one film between 1918 and 1933. She returned to the screen in Death Flight (1934) and began a very long career of 148 films. Almost from the beginning, Sara García specialized in portraying mothers and grandmas, hence her nickname. This specialization began when she dared to remove her entire teeth to get the role of a granny in Allá en el Trópico (1940). After that tremendous tour-de-force her entire career, with very few exceptions, was devoted to this kind of roles. She co-starred with almost the entire cast of Mexican movie stars from the '30s to the '70s. Her films are still popular because they're on TV very often.
- Marga López was born on 21 June 1924 in San Miguel de Tucuman, Argentina. She was an actress, known for Salón México (1949), El privilegio de amar (1998) and Even the Wind Is Afraid (1968). She was married to Carlos Amador. She died on 4 July 2005 in Mexico City, Mexico.
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- Producer
Cantinflas, born Mario Moreno as the son of a Mexican postal employee, was a prolific and productive Mexican comedian/producer/writer/singer who also knew a fair bit about agriculture and medicine. He was married to Valentina Ivanova from 1936 until her death. He appeared in more than 55 films, including (as Passepartout) Around the World in 80 Days (1956).- Actor
- Producer
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Germán Valdés was born on 19 September 1915 in Mexico City, Distrito Federal, Mexico. He was an actor and producer, known for Three and a Half Musketeers (1957), Chanoc en las garras de las fieras (1970) and Chanoc contra el tigre y el vampiro (1972). He was married to Rosalía Julián, Micaela Vargas and Magdalena Martínez. He died on 29 June 1973 in Mexico City, Distrito Federal, Mexico.- Actor
- Producer
- Writer
One of the most popular comic actors of Mexican cinema and television, Gaspar Henaine (better known as "Capulina") was the son of a hotel owner. His father, Antonio Henaine -born in Lebanon to Lebanese parents- wanted him to follow in the hotel business. Nevertheless, Gaspar went to pursue an artistic career, moving from his native town in Puebla to Mexico City. He started off with the musical trio "Los Excéntricos del Ritmo" in the early 1940s, and years later he formed his own group, "Los Trincas". Capulina's first musical performances were in small theaters and marquees. After a relative success, Capulina had his first great opportunity at the XEW (now Televisa S.A. de C.V.), one of the biggest and most important radio and television networks in Latin America, alternating with comedic performances at "Teatro Blanquita". In theater he continued singing and playing the guitar along with important artistic figures of the time. His first appearances in movies were playing music with his old companions at "Los Trincas". One of them would become his long-time partner Marco Antonio Campos "Viruta", with whom he later formed one of the most famous comedy duos in Mexican cinema and television, "Viruta y Capulina". They're considered by many critics as the Mexican version of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy. There was only a little difference: Viruta, the skinny one, was the smart guy and the "brain" of the duo, who suffers all the gags from Capulina, the fatty one and his sidekick. Capulina received punishments from Viruta, such as pinches and smacks on the head, using Capulina's own holed black hat. Viruta and Capulina's style was of a very particular slapstick comedy, in which the former had a coward and witty personality, including a great variety of mannerisms (trembling body, quivering voice). Capulina's trademarks were also his large mustache and a gap-toothed smile. These comic routines made them very famous in their first films, such as La sombra del otro (1957), Se los chupó la bruja (1958), Muertos de miedo (1958), etc. Viruta and Capulina combined work in movies and television, appearing in Cómicos y canciones (1956) program, during the 1950s and 1960s, a night television program (the most famous at the early days of Mexican television). In this program both had versatile performances, where the funny couple made their comic routines (written by future comedian actor Roberto Gómez Bolaños), singing and playing the guitar, along with famous singers like Hermanas Navarro (Rosina Navarro and Socorro Navarro), rock and roll groups, and other fellow colleagues, like "Los Polivoces" (whom made funny impressions of Viruta and Capulina), among others. But the old couple finished their mutual work and the separation was inevitable. By the mid-1960s each one developed their own separated careers in cinema during the following years. There are many speculations about the case: Capulina was having more popularity with their fans, they weren't called by producers anymore, etc. Capulina earned the nickname of "King of White Comedy". The most popular movies from this stage were Mi padrino (1969), Santo vs. Capulina (1969) (alongside Mexican B-movies star and wrestler El Santo), El hermano Capulina (1970), El investigador Capulina (1975), etc. Gaspar Henaine never abandoned his musical career, recording nearly 12 albums and memorable songs for children like "Las rejas de Chapultepec". He continued having a very high activity in theater, acting in comic plays and making stand-up comedy. In the late 1980s, Capulina enjoyed a television revival in Televisa, with Las aventuras de Capulina (1989) program, although this project lasted only a few years and didn't has the comic punch from the past, alternating with another Mexican wrestler, Tinieblas and his little shaggy partner, Alushe. By the early 1990s, Capulina started out a very ambitious project in the entertaining industry with "Capulina's Circus". He hosted the show and made clown routines, during long tours in many cities of Mexico, retiring from the show business many years later. He appeared in sporadic interviews for the press and television documentaries until his death, at 85.- Actor
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- Soundtrack
Marco Antonio Campos will forever be best remembered as the thin, serious half of the comedy duo Viruta and Capulina (with Gaspar Henaine as the chubby, silly half), but he was also an excellent musician, a gifted singer, and a capable screenwriter. Viruta (Campos) and Capulina (Henaine) achieved success and enduring popularity in the mid-1950s with their movies, TV shows, radio programs, and stage appearances. A decade later, they parted ways and Campos began a short-lived solo career as a supporting actor before retiring from show business.
Campos was born in Mexico City during the Mexican Revolution. He inherited his musical talent from his mother, Sara Contreras, who played piano and guitar and also had a beautiful voice. After his parents divorced, he and his mother moved to his maternal grandparents' home, where he discovered his lifelong love for books. When he was 18 years old, he decided to begin a career as an entertainer, took his guitar with him, and left home to work as a bar singer.
In 1938, Campos made his professional debut as a member of the musical quartet El Poker de la Armonía. From 1940 to 1942, he sang and played tropical music with the Trío Latino. He also performed on stage and in radio programs with the Trío Romanceros. He found his stage name when he expressed his desire to become a great dancer like Adalberto Martínez but his friends said he looked more like a woodchip ("viruta") than a coil spring ("resortes", Martínez's nickname).
In the early 1950s, Campos started a singing duo with a performer named Chamula. Viruta and Chamula recorded several humorous songs written by Chava Flores, but the comedy team did not last long because Chamula was a heavy drinker. It was shortly after that professional upset when Gaspar Henaine "Capulina" invited Campos to create a new duo for stage and radio. Before the decade was over, Viruta and Capulina were starring in their hit TV show Cómicos y canciones (1956) and had already released their first box-office success, Se los chupó la bruja (1958).
The next decade brought Viruta and Capulina even more fame. They began touring Latin America and continued making highly profitable movies for several production companies. Their screenplays were usually written by Jaime Salvador or Roberto Gómez Bolaños. Campos wrote the story of Cascabelito (1962), which Henaine thought was one of the duo's best movies. They also ventured into science fiction with Los astronautas (1964) and La edad de piedra (1964). However, their joint career was waning and Dos pintores pintorescos (1967) was their last movie.
Henaine chose to embark on a new career without Campos and began producing his own movies. Now alone, Campos reinvented himself as a television host and a reliable supporting actor. He enjoyed playing the character roles of his post-Viruta and Capulina career but eventually retired before the end of the decade to spend more time with his beloved wife and mother. His favorite pastimes included writing, music, painting, and sculpturing. At the time of his death, he was planning the publication of his two-volume autobiography, "Memorias de un trovador".- Actor
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- Soundtrack
Adalberto Martínez was born on 25 January 1916 in Mexico, Distrito Federal, Mexico. He was an actor and writer, known for Los albañiles (1976), El rey de México (1956) and La presidenta municipal (1975). He was married to Meche Constanzo, Gloria Ríos and Josefina Flores Santacruz. He died on 4 April 2003 in Mexico City, Distrito Federal, Mexico.- Antonio Espino was born on 13 August 1910 in Teziutlan, Puebla, Mexico. He was an actor and writer, known for Aladino y la lámpara maravillosa (1958), El organillero (1957) and Las chivas rayadas (1964). He was married to Ana María Noemí Barreiro Ortigoza. He died on 24 November 1993 in Mexico, D.F., Mexico.
- Fernando Soto was born on 15 April 1911 in Puebla, Mexico. He was an actor, known for Campeón sin corona (1946), Extraña cita (1947) and El rayo de Jalisco (1962). He died on 11 May 1980 in Mexico City, Mexico.
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- Soundtrack
Armando Soto La Marina was born on 1 October 1909 in Mexico, Distrito Federal, Mexico. He was an actor, known for Llámenme Mike (1979), Night Falls (1952) and Me he de comer esa tuna (1945). He died on 20 March 1983 in Mexico, Distrito Federal, Mexico.- Actor
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- Director
José Elías Moreno was born on 12 November 1910 in Las Palmas, Unión de San Antonio, Jalisco, Mexico. He was an actor and writer, known for Santa Claus (1959), Las tres perfectas casadas (1953) and La bestia magnífica (1952). He was married to Beatriz Jimeno. He died on 15 July 1969 in Mexico, D.F., Mexico.- Actor
- Producer
Tito Junco was born on 3 October 1915 in Gutierrez Zamora, Veracruz, Mexico. He was an actor and producer, known for The Exterminating Angel (1962), Maria Isabel (1968) and The Adventuress (1950). He died on 9 December 1983 in Mexico City, Mexico.- Carlos López Moctezuma was born on 19 November 1909 in Mexico, Distrito Federal, Mexico. He was an actor, known for El rebozo de Soledad (1952), Canaima (1945) and Hidden River (1948). He died on 14 July 1980 in Aguascalientes, Mexico.
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Emilio "El Indio" Fernandez Romo is the most famous person in the history of Mexican movies. For an era he symbolized Mexico due to his violent machismo, rooted in the Revolution of 1910-17, and because of his staunch commitment to Mexican cultural nationalism. Born to a Mexican (Mestizo) father and a Native American Kickapoo mother, Emilio was himself the "mestizaje" (mestizo) that his films would later glorify.
The teenaged Fernandez abandoned his studies to serve as an officer in the Huertista rebellion, which broke out on 12/4/1923, led by Gen. Adolfo de la Huerta. On July 20th of that year, Pancho Villa had been ambushed and murdered; one theory was that the killing was done by agents of Mexican President Álvaro Obregón. Obregon, when he served as a general during the revolution, had defeated Villa in four successive battles collectively known as the Battle of Celaya, which was the largest military confrontation in Latin-American history before the 1982 Falklands War.
Under the Constitution of 1917 that Obregon himself helped write, Mexican presidents could not succeed themselves (Obregon would later have the constitution amended so he could serve a second, non-consecutive term; after winning the presidential election of 1928, he was assassinated before his inauguration). Obregon had won the presidency in 1920 after inciting a successful military revolt against President Venustiano Carranza, who had planned on naming Ignacio Bonillas as his successor instead of Obregon, who believed that he deserved it. The revolt began when the governor of the state of Sonora, Gen. Huerta, broke with President Carranza and declared the secession of Sonora. This was a signal for the beginning of the successful uprising against Carranza, led by Obregon and supported by Gen. Plutarco Elías Calles. After Carranza was killed in an ambush, Huerta served as provisional president of Mexico from 6/1/1920 to 12/1/1920, until elections could be held. When Obregon won the federal election, Huerta became Minister of Finance in the new government.
Huerta considered himself the natural successor to President Obregon, just as Obregon had considered himself Carranza's natural successor. The murdered Villa was seen as an ally of Huerta, who had publicly announced his candidacy for the presidency. Obregon, however, planned to remain in power by handpicking his successor, a tradition that lasted throughout 20th-century Mexican politics. When he named his anti-clerical Minister of the Interior, the former Gen. Calles, as his heir, Huerta rose up in a rebellion that eventually affected half of the Mexican army. Like Huerta a native of Sonora and a former general in the Mexican army, Calles had preceded him as governor and military ruler of their home state from 1915-16. Huerta thought his service and loyalty to Obregon should have brought him the presidency, but Mexican presidents, not allowed to succeed themselves and limited (mostly) to one term, tried to extend their power by naming political puppets as successors (Calles would outdo Obregon by controlling the Mexican presidency outright or through puppets from 1924-34).
The rebellion was a serious threat to Obregon, but he was able to quash it by using loyal army units, battalions of workers and farmers and intervention by the US. By the time the revolt ended in March 1924, 54 generals and 7,000 soldiers were gone, either killed in battle, executed, exiled or dismissed. Obregon banished Huerta to exile in the US (where he lived in Los Angeles, supporting himself as a music teacher). This was the cauldron of violence and nationalism in which the young Fernandez came into his manhood. He received a 20-year prison sentence for his participation in the rebellion on the losing side. Escaping prison by following Huerta into exile in Los Angeles, Fernandez absorbed the rudiments of filmmaking as a bit player and extra working in Hollywood in the 1920s and early 1930s. With the election of Lázaro Cárdenas as president in 1934, the Huertista rebels were granted an amnesty (Huerta himself was recalled from exile by Cardenas in 1935 and served in several posts, including Inspector General of Foreign Consulates and Director General of Civil Pensions). Fernandez returned to Mexico in 1934 and began working in the Mexican movie industry as a screenwriter and actor. His Indian looks, which gave him his nickname "El Indio," also brought him his first lead role, playing an Indian in Janitzio (1935). Due to his imposing physical presence and Indian countenance, El Indio was cast as bandits, charros (cowboys) and revolutionaries.
The Cardenas government of 1934-40 established the framework in which the "Golden Age of Mexican Cinema" could be realized. The political system that dominated Mexico for over half a century was consolidated during his regime. The government incorporated trade unions, campesino (peasant) organizations and middle-class professionals and office workers into the ruling Party of the Mexican Revolution (later the Party of the Institutional Revolution, or PRI). Cardenas oversaw the redistribution of millions of acres of land to peasants and the expansion of collective bargaining rights and wage increases to workers.
Cardenas and all subsequent PRM/PRI presidents (all presidents of Mexico in the 20th century beginning with Calles were PRM/PRI members; Vicente Fox was the first from outside the party in three-quarters of a century) maintained political control of Mexico by granting favors and concessions to their constituencies inside the corporatist party structure in exchange for worker and campesino organizations delivering votes and suppressing discontent among their constituencies. The PRM/PRI itself created an organizational structure for the government that allowed citizens access to the political realm, in the sense that they could interface with government agencies. Once inside the government machine, seeking redress, favors, etc., the non-connected citizen was led through a maze of layers of bureaucracy that never permitted a satisfactory result. Citizens caught in the maze were eventually frustrated and discouraged, but the ingenious if disingenuous system worked as it gave them input--just no guaranteed output. By frustrating them within an institutional structure, the PRM/PRI governments--both federal and state--took the fight out of them. The PRM/PRI sought to control frustration that had led to violence in the past, particularly among the generals who had the power to destabilize the society and economy. That government structure thus served as a homeostatic device for the people's frustration, relieving it and never allowing it to build up again into a revolutionary situation.
Cardenas' most notable achievement arguably was the nationalization of Mexico's oil industry. After unsuccessfully trying to negotiate better terms with Mexican Eagle--the holding company owned by Royal Dutch/Shell and Standard Oil of New Jersey--Cardenas nationalized Mexico's petroleum reserves and expropriated the equipment of the foreign oil companies on 3/18/38. A spontaneous six-hour parade broke out in Mexico City to celebrate the event. Unlike Fidel Castro's nationalization of foreign assets in Cuba, Shell and SONJ were compensated for their expropriated assets. Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex) and the Mexican model became a beacon for other oil-producing nations seeking to gain control over their own energy resources from foreign companies. Cardenas was the only PRM/PRI president who did not enrich himself while in office. After retiring as Minister of Defense in 1945--the post he took after relinquishing the presidency--he assumed a modest lifestyle. He spent the last years of his life supervising irrigation projects and promoting education and free medical care for the poor. This was the man who set the tone of the modern Mexico that arose from the revolution and civil wars of the 1920s, who cleared the ground for the economic boom of the 1940s in which the "Golden Age of Mexican Cinema" reached its apogee. Classic Mexican cinema has mostly been ignored in the US due to the language barrier and a colonialist mindset suffused with racism. When Mexican cinema has been addressed by those north of the border, the primary focus fell on the brilliant cinematography of Gabriel Figueroa, who shot films for John Ford and John Huston, or on former Hollywood star Dolores Del Río. Fernandez's reputation was so great that he was even appreciated in the US in his lifetime, but his notoriety as a sort of wildman of the Mexican movie industry and his appearance as an actor in Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch (1969) overshadowed his greatness as a director. While Mexico has often served as a locale for American films--the genres of sweet (white) young things imperiled by swarthy Mexican bandits and of Americans in revolutionary Mexico, to say nothing of Zorro and The Cisco Kid--have been part of the Yankee cinema since the East Coast-based film companies began relocating to southern California in the early 1910s. Gringo Warner Baxter won the second Oscar ever awarded for Best Actor playing The Cisco Kid in a role originally intended for Raoul Walsh, of all people. Mexico has been the site of such blockbuster films as Viva Villa! (1934), Juarez (1939), Viva Zapata! (1952), Vera Cruz (1954), The Professionals (1966) and "The Wild Bunch," but except for La caza del oro (1972), a Johnny-Come-Lately to the genre, they seldom featured Mexican actors in anything other than bit parts, if at all, with the exception of Anthony Quinn, one of the few Mexican-Americans to achieve superstar status. Mexican performers taken up by Hollywood --such as Ramon Novarro, Rita Hayworth, John Gavin and Raquel Welch--were, like half-Mexican baseball great Ted Williams (born in San Diego), de-ethnicized in a sort of cultural ethnic cleansing. Salma Hayek, who is of mixed Mexican and Lebanese parentage, is arguably the first Mexican since Lupe Velez and Dolores del Rio to cross over as a Hollywood superstar and remain identifiably Mexican (even at the dawn of a new millennium, she was urged by her Hollywood agents to play up her Arabic ethnicity, even with anti-Arab feeling rife in Hollywood and the US at large--their "reasoning" was that no one would go see a Mexican in movies since their cleaning ladies were Mexican),
Until the 1990s, with Like Water for Chocolate (1992) ("Like Water for Chocolate"), Mexican films themselves seldom strayed in the Yankee consciousness, except for the rare one like The Pearl (1947), based on a novel by Californian John Steinbeck and a prize-winner at the Venice Film Festival. "La Perla" was directed by Fernandez, the greatest director to come out of Mexico's golden age of cinema. The first Mexican feature was released in 1906, though production often was eclipsed by political and economic conditions. There were documentaries made about the Mexican Revolution in the 1910s, but very few films were made in the 1920s. Sergei Eisenstein's trip to Mexico in the early 1930s to make Que Viva Mexico (1979), which remained unfinished due to his problems with his American backer, Upton Sinclair, injected a new enthusiasm into the Mexican movie industry.
While most American film historians place the Golden Age firmly in the 1940s--some specifically assigning it to the period 1943-46 and others extending it until the mid-'50s--the Golden Age of Mexican Cinema properly stretches back to 1936, peaks in the mid-'40s (when the Mexican cinema receives international recognition; two of Fernandez's films won the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival and were nominated for the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festivals) and terminates in the mid-'50s, with the end of Fernandez's 25-film collaboration with cinematographer Gabriel Figueroa. Figueroa, the Mexican movie industry's first great director, inaugurated the Golden Age in 1936 with two hits, Out on the Big Ranch (1936) ("Out at Big Ranch") and Let's Go with Pancho Villa (1936) ("Let's Go with Pancho Villa"). Both were "political message" movies addressing the social and cultural issues lying at the heart of Mexican Revolution. "Vamonos con Pancho Villa" has the distinction of being the first feature produced at the Mexican government-subsidized studio Cinematografica Latino Americana S.A., while "Allá en el Rancho Grande" made Tito Guízar a star. Guizar eventually became the Mexican movie industry's first superstar by playing in the "comedias rancheras" (ranch comedies) genre that was the most popular type of film in Mexico in the 1930s. A hit with audiences throughout Latin America, "comedias rancheras" were set in an idyllic, pre-revolutionary Mexico. The vaudevillian Mario Moreno, who became a Latin-American superstar under the name Cantinflas, made his short-subject debut in 1936 and would soon become the Latin-American film industry's leading comedian when he made his feature-film debut in You're Missing the Point (1940) ("There is the Detail"). The Cantinflas character is rooted in the image of the "pelado," or poor white trash, and his character deflates respectable society through his sharp repartee. Peace--i.e., a lack of overt domestic political turmoil--laid the groundwork for the development of a truly popular indigenous cinema in the 1930s and '40s. The comedias rancheras and Cantinflas comedies helped make the Mexican cinema commercially viable. With Hollywood distracted by turning out propaganda and military training films during World War II, there was an opening in Latin America that the Mexican industry filled. Without competition from Hollywood, the Mexican movie industry dominated Latin-American cinemas for most of the decade. Movie production tripled in the 1940s compared to the previous decade. The Mexican film industry underwent a consolidation and developed a star system, some of whom crossed over to achieve international recognition. The peak of the Golden Age of Mexican cinema came in the 1940s, spurred by rapid industrialization and a resulting affluence--although inequitably distributed--caused by trade with the US, as World War II boosted American demand for Mexican raw materials. The Mexican movie industry became the world's largest producer of Spanish-language films, helped by the fact that the other large producers, Argentina and Spain, were headed by fascist governments. Though the Mexican government was conservative and repressive in the 1940s, it encouraged the production of nationalist films that helped articulate a Mexican identity. During the 1940s Mexican movie stars and directors became popular icons, and some even became public figures with effective political influence. Among the movie stars blossoming during the decade were Dolores del Rio, Pedro Infante, Jorge Negrete, Joaquín Pardavé and María Félix, while Fernandez and Figueroa became globally known. Luis Buñuel moved to Mexico and would direct some of the country's major movies in the following decade.
Mexican movies typically were genre pictures, melodramas, romances, musicals, comedies and horror, which addressed all aspects of Mexican society, from love stories about the "lumpen proletariat" to dramas about the Indians. Mexican movies are a mirror of Mexican society, including history (19th-century dictator Porfirio Díaz and his court, The Revolution and Villa and Emiliano Zapata), obsessions (both familial and erotic) and mythology (Indian and big-city culture). Mexican cinema did this using the classic genres of the the melodrama, the comedy (in its romantic, musical and ranchera versions, and slapstick and farce) and even the horror film. With its proximity to Hollywood, and the fact that many leading lights of the Mexican cinema were familiar with Hollywood production values, the indigenous movie industry set a high standard for itself, as it had to measure up to Hollywood product.
Fernandez made his motion picture debut as an actor in Chano Urueta's El destino (1928), but his early work in movies was in American westerns churned out by Monogram director John P. McCarthy, including the Bob Steele programmers The Oklahoma Cyclone (1930), The Land of Missing Men (1930), Headin' North (1930), The Sunrise Trail (1931) and the Tim McCoy "hoss opera" The Western Code (1932). After a supporting role in Enrico Caruso Jr.'s La buenaventura (1934), he made his return to Mexican pictures in 1934, starring in Heart of a Bandit (1934) and director Fernando de Fuentes' Cruz Diablo (1934).
Fernandez's first film as a director was La isla de la pasión (1942), in 1941, which he also wrote and in which he played a bit part. The movie starred Pedro Armendáriz, who Fernandez would cast in many of his films. Another favorite collaborator was his wife Columba Domínguez. El Indio rapidly gained a reputation as Mexico's premier director making populist dramas. His Maria Candelaria (1944) put Mexican film on the map when it won the Grand Prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 1946. It has been variously praised as "the highest triumph of Mexican plastic arts on celluloid" and as "a titanic promise for strictly patriotic [Mexican] cinema." French film critic Georges Sadoul, in his 1954 book "Histoire General du Cinema," praised the film for its "authentic" portrayal of rural Mexican life and for addressing race relations.
The film remains controversial in Mexico due to El Indio's aesthetic choices, which emphasized the exotic and primitive, and his representation of Mexican Indians, which some critics believed was inauthentic or "touristy." The nationalistic Fernandez wanted to articulate an idea of what it meant to be Mexican that was uniquely Mexican, and not influenced by Hollywood, whose films he felt were Americanizing Mexican cinema audiences. Terming his films "autos sacramentales [passion plays] of mexicanidad," Fernandez wanted to create a Mexican cinema that Mexicanized Mexicans. The film stars Dolores del Rio, the Hollywood movie star who had returned to Mexico after becoming disillusioned with the American movie industry, as the daughter of a prostitute trying to survive just before the Revolution. Set in the floating gardens of Xochimilco in Mexico City, del Rio's character is shunned by the locals, who are indigenous people. Her great desire is to marry her lover, played by Pedro Armendariz, but their romance proves to be star-crossed. Fernandez's direction was flawless, and Figueroa's black-and-white cinematography was masterful. The collaborators created one of the classics of not just Mexican movies but of world cinema. When El Indio and Figueroa were making "Maria Candelaria," they were part of a movement in which Mexican filmmakers were consciously attempting to create an indigenous art cinema that could compete with Hollywood product while simultaneously articulating a vision of Mexicans that was rooted in the "indigenismo" and "mestizophilia" of Mexican intellectuals. José Vasconcelos, the Minister of Education during the Obregon administration, was particularly influential due to his concepts of "mexicanos en potencia" and the cosmic race. In Vasconcelos' philosophy, the "barbarous" Indian was redeemed by a modernization program based on education, and by the assimilation of the Indians with the Caucausian Europeans into "la raza" of mestizos ("mestizaje"). Gabriel Figueroa was conscious of the fact that he and Fernandez, a creative team that became known as "Epoca de Oro," invented an idea of rural Mexico that did not actually exist. Figueroa established himself as the leader in imagining a new, post-revolutionary Mexican consciousness, through the vehicle of the visual image. A "painter in light," Figueroa learned his craft from Gregg Toland and Eduard Tisse, Eisenstein's cinematographer. Figueroa is credited with creating the classic Mexican film aesthetic in collaboration with El Indio and other film directors. In over 200 movies, he developed the classic imagery and aesthetic of Mexican cinema, which also influenced and was influenced by contemporary Mexican artists. Figueroa pioneered an indigenous visual vernacular that affected the muralist movement, and he has been referred to as the fourth of the most important Mexican muralist after Orozco, Diego Rivera and David Siqueiros. Siqueiros himself called Figueroa's cinematography "murals that travel."
In their 25 films together between 1942-58, El Indio and Figueroa created the idea of "mexicanidad" cinema while elevating the mestizaje (mixed-race) identity, as well as the status of the pre-Columbian culture. The epic visual style they developed was indebted to Eisenstein's unfinished "Que viva Mexico." Their style fetishized the Mexican landscape through beautiful, carefully composed, stationary long shots. For two decades Mexican art cinema was identified with the films resulting from the Fernandez-Figueroa collaboration. Their films not only affected Mexican audiences' collective identity, but they affected how their audiences, both domestic and global, viewed Mexico and its history.
The climax of "Maria Candelaria" was an homage to Carlos Navarro's classic "indigenista" film Janitzio (1935). The movie is evocative of the anti-clerical struggles engendered by the Revolution. The secularization of the Mexican state was begun with the 1910 Revolution, continued with the 1917 Constitution, and reached a violent apotheosis in the Cristero Rebellion of 1926-29, when the President tried to crack down on the Roman Catholic church. However, the anti-clericalism of the revolutionaries had to co-exist with the cult of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the symbol that has proved the most powerful and enduring in creating a Mexican national consciousness. Our Lady has served as a symbol for political struggles from the 19th-century wars of independence to the Cristero wars. On one level, "Maria Candelaria" is a paean to the cult of the Virgin Mary, a phenomenon present in much of classical Mexican cinema, which likely is one of the reasons the films Fernandez and Figueroa and others of the 1940s and 1950s proved so popular all over Latin America.
In 1946 Fernandez filmed an adaptation of John Steinbeck's novella "The Pearl," in Spanish- and English-language versions. Shot by Figueroa and starring El Indio's favorite actor, Pedro Armendariz, "La perla" won El Indio a nomination for Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, further solidifying his notoriety as a director and publicizing the Mexican movie industry. The film also won him the Golden Ariel for Best Picture at the 1948 Ariel Awards (the Mexican equivalent of the Oscars), and Fernandez, Figueroa, Armendariz and Juan García won Silver Ariels for Best Direction, Cinematography, Actor and Supporting Actor, respectively. Figueroa won a Golden Globe for Best Cinematography in 1949 from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association.
In 1948 Salón México (1949) was released, written and directed by Fernandez with cinematography by Figueroa. An urban melodrama, the film was groundbreaking in that it helped usher in a new genre, the "cabaretera" (cabaret) film, racier and just as commercial as the familiar genre of rancheras, which was then fading in popularity. The movie recreates the atmosphere of the famous Mexico City dance hall and won Marga López an Ariel Award for her role as the taxi dancer Mercedes. The movie featured a sensual soundtrack performed by the Afro-Cuban music group Son Clave de Oro. By the end of the 1940s Emilio Fernandez was the most famous and prestigious director in all of Latin America. He would continue his reign as Mexico's premier director into the mid-'50s, when his powers began to decline and Spanish amigra Luis Buñuel took over the title. As the most famous directors and biggest stars aged or died, Mexican cinema began to decline commercially, and the Golden Age of Mexican cinema came to an end (ironically, Bunuel's Mexican oeuvre strengthened as the national cinema went into decline and L'age d'or went into eclipse).
Although Fernandez and Figueroa last worked together in El puño del amo (1958), which starred El Indio's half-brother Jaime Fernández, the collaboration was essentially over by the mid-'50s when they made La rosa blanca (1954) and La Tierra del Fuego se apaga (1955). Their last great film together was La rebelión de los colgados (1954) (based on B. Traven's "Rebellion of the Hanged," it's English-language title), which starred Pedro Armendariz and Emiolio's half-brother Jaime Fernández, both of whom were nominated for Silver Ariel awards as Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor, respectively. Jaime Fernandez won the Ariel, as did Amanda del Llano for Best Supporting Actress, Gloria Schoemann for editing and José B. Carles for sound. Antonio Díaz Conde was nominated for a Silver Ariel for Best Score. As his collaboration with Fernandez waned, Figueroa's professional relationship with Bunuel waxed. Figueroa first served as director of photography on Bunuel's classic The Young and the Damned (1950), which won 11 Ariels in 1951, including the Golden Ariel as Best Picture in 1951 and awards for Best Cinematography for Figueroa and Best Director and Original Story for Bunuel. Their other films together were Nazarin (1959) ("This Strange Passion"; winner of the International Prize at the 1959 Cannes Film Festival), Fever Mounts at El Pao (1959); The Young One (1960), (which won a Special Mention at the 1960 Cannes Film Festival); The Exterminating Angel (1962), ("The Exterminating Angel"); and Simon of the Desert (1965) ("Simon of the Desert"). Of the Golden Age output, "New York Times" movie critic A.O. Scott said, "There is a frankness in these films that would never have passed muster with the Hays Office." The Golden Age had peaked in the 1940s, bolstered by the economic boom caused by the World War II alliance with the US, government support for the industry via state-funded studios, the maturation of a star system, and the rationalization of distribution and exhibition. Aside from Bunuel's pictures, the post-Golden Age era saw indigenous cinema suffer through the 1960s, as the industry became more dependent on formulaic pictures and such popular genres as the "Santo the Wrestler" series. During the 1960s and 1970s many low-grade horror and action movies were produced with professional wrestler Santo and Hugo Stiglitz being the biggest stars. However, the moribund 1960s led to a revival of government support for the industry in the 1970s, which established the base for a revival of Mexican art cinema in the 1980s and 1990s. El Indio continued directing films until 1979, but when his collaboration with Figueroa ended in 1958, his reputation suffered as the artistry of his pictures declined. He began acting more, though he directed a picture every few years. Gradually, the notoriety of his life began overtaking his reputation as a filmmaker. El Indio lived out the fantasy of perhaps every director when he shot a critic, who had dissed one of his movies, in the testicles. A violent man, he shot and killed a farm laborer, which he claimed was in self-defense. Convicted of manslaughter in 1976, he served six months of a 4-1/2-year sentence. By the 1960s Fernandez's off-screen reputation as a violent man led to his typecasting as brutal villains in many Mexican and American films. As an actor, Fernandez appeared with his brother, singer/actor Fernando Fernández, in John Ford's The Fugitive (1947), on which he also served as associate producer. Other American films he appeared in were John Huston's The Unforgiven (1960) (on which he also served as second unit director) and The Night of the Iguana (1964), the John Wayne pictures The War Wagon (1967) and Chisum (1970) (on which he also served as second unit director), Sidney J. Furie's The Appaloosa (1966) in support of Marlon Brando, and Burt Kennedy's Return of the Seven (1966). After assaying the role of renegade Mexican Gen. Mapache in the classic "The Wild Bunch", Fernandez appeared in two other Peckinpah films, as Paco in Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid (1973) and as El Jefe, who gives the order to Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974). He was reunited with John Huston in Under the Volcano (1984) and appeared in Roman Polanski's Pirates (1986).
El Indio's last two films as a writer-director were México Norte (1979) and Erótica (1979), in which he also starred. In all, El Indio directed 43 pictures from 1942-79. He was the credited screenwriter on 40 pictures, starting with Beautiful Sky (1936) in 1936. He also served as second-unit director, both credited and uncredited, on such American pictures shot in Mexico as The Magnificent Seven (1960), in which he was attached to the American crew by the Mexican government to ensure that the depictions of Mexicans were not racist or demeaning. Fernandez died in Mexico City on 8/6/86.
Government sponsorship of the industry and the creation of state-supported film helped create the phenomenon known as the "Nuevo Cine Mexicano" ("New Mexican Cinema") that catapulted Mexican movies into prominence on the global market in the 1990s. Amores Perros (2000), And Your Mother Too (2001) and The Crime of Padre Amaro (2002) are just three of the most recent Mexican films that have featured prominently in American art cinemas. The spirit of El Indio lives on!
In 2002 "La Perla" was named to the National Film Preservation Board's National Film Registry, which is maintained by the US Library of Congress. Fernandez and his collaborator Gabriel Figueroa were honored on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of El Indio's birth at the inaugural Puerto Vallarta Film Festival of the Americas held in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, in November 2004.- Of Jewish origins, Wolf Ruvinskis Manevics was born in 1921 in Riga (Latvia), but fearing persecution during World War II his family relocated to Argentina, where they lived in extreme poverty. In spite of his deprived childhood, Wolf excelled in sports and became interested in wrestling. When he was 19 years old he started his professional career and toured South America, the United States and Mexico, where he decided to stay. Although he stayed on the ring until the 1960s - in matches with top Mexican wrestlers, as El Santo, Black Shadow, El Médico Asesino and Lobo Negro - Wolf was also a tango singer and a magician, and in 1949 he was called to act on the stage and in films. One of his biggest successes was La bestia magnífica (1952), the first in a series of movies centered on Neutron, a character he created. His popularity was firmly established with his role as the handsome rural boy who becomes the victim of a mad scientist in the cult film tt0044416, he was a regular performer in all kinds of movies until the 1990's and was nominated for an Ariel as Best Supporting Actor for Juego limpio (1995). He was also a businessman, and married three times: to Beatriz Perez, to dancer Armida Herrera, and to actress Lilia Michel until his death in 1999.
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Estanislao Schillinsky was born on 10 August 1911 in Baisogala, Lithuania. He was an actor and writer, known for Los tres mosqueteros (1942), Siempre listo en las tinieblas (1939) and Carnaval en el trópico (1942). He died on 27 September 1985 in Mexico City, Mexico.- Actress
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Born in interwar Prague as Miroslava Stanclová, her father died and she was adopted by a Jewish doctor, the psychoanalyst Dr. Oskar Leo Stern (1900-1972) who married her mother, Miroslava (née Becka; 1898-1945). Dr. and Mrs. Stern had a son, Ivo (1931-2011), the actress's half-brother. The family was, at one point, interned in a concentration camp after they fled their native Czechoslovakia in 1939. They sought refuge in various Scandinavian countries before emigrating to Mexico in 1941.
After winning a beauty contest in Mexico City, young Miroslava spent some time in Los Angeles studying acting. Due to her European features and accent, she rarely found roles other than mysterious women or foreign beauties. She was eventually offered a role in what would become her last and most remembered film: Luis Buñuel's The Criminal Life of Archibaldo de la Cruz (1955).
Soon after the film wrapped, she committed suicide reportedly because the man she loved married another woman. In a macabre coincidence, the premiere of The Criminal Life of Archibaldo de la Cruz (1955), in which a mannequin in her likeness is incinerated, was released during her own cremation in a Mexican graveyard. Her short, tragic life inspired a short story in 1990, and a film, Miroslava (1993).- Actress
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Carmen Montejo was born on 26 May 1925 in Pinar del Río, Cuba. She was an actress and writer, known for Mujeres sin mañana (1951), Los cachorros (1973) and La infame (1954). She was married to Manuel González Ortega. She died on 25 February 2013 in Mexico, Distrito Federal, Mexico.- Ignacio López Tarso was born on 15 January 1925 in Mexico, Distrito Federal, Mexico. He was an actor, known for Macario (1960), El Pantera (2007) and Rosa blanca (1961). He was married to Clara Aranda. He died on 11 March 2023 in Mexico City, Mexico.
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Noé Murayama Tudón was born July 4, 1930 in Ciudad Del Maiz, San Luis Potosi, Mexico. The son of a Japanese doctor, Masaki Murayama, and a Mexican mother, María Teresa Tudón, he was the third of eight children. He studied to be a dentist in Mexico City to please his father. He debuted at the university theater, then studied acting at the School of the ANDA. He made his film debut in 1957. He appeared in more than 150 films, 30 plays and about 12 soaps. He is the father of actor Claudio Rojo. He died on August 22, 1997, aged 67, at Santa Elena Hospital in Mexico City from liver problems. At the time of his death he had been appearing in Esmeralda (1997).- Silvia Derbez was born on 8 March 1932 in San Luis Potosi, Mexico. She was an actress, known for Lazos de amor (1995), El rey de México (1956) and Cruz de amor (1970). She died on 6 April 2002 in Mexico City, Distrito Federal, Mexico.
- Julio Villarreal was born on 4 November 1885 in Madrid, Spain. He was an actor and director, known for The Beast of Hollow Mountain (1956), The Rebel (1943) and Christopher Columbus (1943). He was married to Elisa Asperó. He died on 4 August 1958 in Mexico City, Distrito Federal, Mexico.
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Manolo Fábregas was born on 15 July 1921 in Vigo, Spain. He was an actor and director, known for Two Mules for Sister Sara (1970), Mecánica nacional (1971) and La casa de la Troya (1948). He was married to Rafaela Salinas. He died on 4 February 1996 in Mexico City, Mexico.- Mexican character actor Rodolfo Acosta (born Rodolfo Acosta Pérez) achieved his greatest success in the US, primarily as a villain in westerns. He was born in Chamizal, a section of land disputed by Mexico and Texas due to changes in the Rio Grande river which forms the border. At the time of Acosta's birth, the area was generally accepted by both Mexican and Texas governments as U.S. territory, and Acosta was born an American citizen, despite the fact that his birthplace is now in the Mexican state of Chihuahua. He served in the U.S. Navy in naval intelligence during World War II and married Jeanine Cohen, a woman he met in Casablanca during the North African campaign. They had four children. She filed for divorce when she found out Acosta was having an affair and sharing an apartment in Mexico City with actress Ann Sheridan in the 1950s.) They divorced in 1957. Rodolfo Acosta married again on September 18, 1971 to Vera Martinez and they had one child. She divorced him in 1974 a few weeks before his death at the Motion Picture and Television Country House and Hospital in Woodland Hills, California. After the war, Acosta worked in Mexico in films of the great director Emilio Fernández, which led to a bit in John Ford's film The Fugitive (1947). He came to the US and was signed by Universal for a small role in One Way Street (1950). He stayed in the US and his sharp, ruthless features led him to a long succession of roles as bandits, Indian warriors and outlaws. In The Tijuana Story (1957), he actually had a sympathetic leading role, but in general he spent his career as a very familiar western bad guy.
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Rosita Quintana was born on 19 July 1925 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. She was an actress and writer, known for A los cuatro vientos (1955), ¿Dónde estás, corazón? (1961) and Carabina 30-30 (1958). She was married to Sergio Kogan, Jorge D'Arnell and Julio Chapira. She died on 23 August 2021 in Mexico, Distrito Federal, Mexico.- Actor
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Ramón Valdés was a Mexican actor of film and television best known for his portrayal of Don Ramón in the popular sitcom El Chavo. Prior to becoming a television star, Valdés was an extra in many films.
Valdés participated in more than 50 Mexican films, specializing in hyperactive underdog characters. He is likely best-remembered for playing Don Ramón in the hit television show El Chavo. Valdés also appeared on Chespirito's other hit show, El Chapulín Colorado, usually as Chapulín's antagonist, the famous Tripaseca ("Dry Gut"). In some episodes, he portrayed a character named Super Sam, an English-speaking, money-thirsty superhero dressed as Superman, clearly mocking Uncle Sam and the relatively wealthy situation of United States, when compared to average Latin American countries, as well as criticizing the American colonialism. Valdés also played El Peterete, the original partner of El Chómpiras in early versions of the Los Caquitos sketches.
Both El Chavo and El Chapulín became major international hits across Latin America, Spain, the United States and other non-Spanish speaking countries, giving their entire cast international fame.
On 9 August 1988, Valdés died at age 63 after a battle with stomach cancer.- Actress
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Libertad Lamarque was born November 24, 1908 in Rosario, Argentina, the youngest of ten children of Gaudencio Lamarque, an Uruguayan tinsmith who was worked as a contortionist in her youth, and Josefa Bouza, a Spanish immigrant. Since her childhood, Libertad Lamarque demonstrated a great talent for the performance and also for the song. Her debut as actress was at 7 years old and at 12 she was pro. In 1922 the family Lamarque emigrated to Buenos Aires and she began to work in the theater. At 18, she recorded her first LP of tangos (popular music of Argentina), obtaining an immediate success and she married with Emilio Romero (the father of Mirtha, her only daughter), then she played the silent movie "Adios, Argentina" (1930) and "Tango" (1933), which was, by the way, the first sound movie filmed in Argentina, and during the next 65 years all her works were starring with her name. In 1945 Libertad Lamarque was already known as an excellent dramatic actress and singer of tangos, boleros and folkloric songs of Latin America and she was received the nickname of "La Novia de América" (The Bride of the Americas) and also she even stood out as writer (she wrote the script of "Ayúdame a vivir"). However, not everything was happiness: her first husband died after their divorce and she lived an unpleasant incident with the (in this time) actress Eva Duarte (known after as Eva Perón, the famous Argentinean First Lady know nowadays simply as Evita) while they filmed "La cabalgata del circo." So, Libertad Lamarque (like other Argentinean artists of the time), suffered a non-official veto to her movies and while she was in tour for Latin America, she and her second (and last) husband, Alfredo Malerba settled in Mexico and there continued her very successful career, although in 1960 she returned to Argentina to make a movie. During her very extensive career, Libertad Lamarque filmed 65 movies (21 in Argentina, 43 in Mexico and 1 in Spain) and 6 soap operas, recorded more than 800 songs and many musicals and made many theatrical pieces; however, she says: "I am very lazy". When she is not acting or in shows, Lamarque lives between Miami, Florida (where she resides since 1996 with her personal assistant, Irene López) and Buenos Aires, Argentina where she visits her family (daughter, son-in-law, 5 grandsons and 10 great-grandchildren). Libertad Lamarque assures that doesn't have intentions of retiring of the show business: "I will continue working while I have a good pulse to makeup myself" she said.- Actress
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Irma Dorantes was born on 21 December 1934 in Merida, Yucatan, Mexico. She is an actress, known for Sol en llamas (1962), Pa' qué me sirve la vida (1961) and Timeless Love (2010). She was previously married to Pedro Infante.- Roberto Cañedo Ramírez was born in Guadalajara, Jalisco, México. His parents were Ignacio Cañedo Iñiguez and Carmen Ramírez Llamas. Has 8 more brothers: Ignacio, Celia, Juan de Dios, María Luisa, Cristina, Manuel, Oscar and Magdalena. In his youth, he worked as a waiter in a restaurant frequented by important people of the film environment. That is how he could be part of the art scene. His debut on films was in 1938 as an extra in 'Capitán aventurero'. For 11 years he made other extra characters, until September 30th, 1943 when he participated on theater in the play called 'Entre Hermanos'. He was very successful in radio soap operas since 1944 where he was accompanied by other stars like Prudencia Grifell, Blanca Estela Pabón, Rosa de Castilla and María Victoria. In 1949, the film director Emilio 'El Indio' Fernández invited him to participated with a starring role in "Pueblerina". He married for the first time with Nellie Valencia. They had 3 kids, Roberto, Francisco and Silvia. After divorcing he married with Ana María Padilla and had 3 girls, Sandra Alicia, Laura Anabelle and Claudia Gisela. He died at the age of 80.
- Actor
- Director
- Writer
Fernando Soler was born on 24 May 1895 in Saltillo, Coahuila, Mexico. He was an actor and director, known for El grito de la carne (1951), Papacito lindo (1939) and The Great Madcap (1949). He was married to Sagra del Río. He died on 25 October 1979 in Mexico City, Distrito Federal, Mexico.- Actress
- Music Department
- Soundtrack
María Victoria was born on 26 February 1923 in Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico. She is an actress, known for Unos granujas decentes (1980), Cupido pierde a Paquita (1955) and Sortilegio (2009).- Actor
- Soundtrack
Manuel 'Loco' Valdés was born on 29 January 1931 in Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico. He was an actor, known for La caperucita roja (1960), The Panther Women (1967) and A ritmo de twist (1962). He was married to Yolanda Peña. He died on 28 August 2020 in Mexico City, Distrito Federal, Mexico.