Actor Ignacio López Tarso didn’t have to accept death to be immortalized in the history of Mexican cinema. Unlike the character he played in the film Macario, the artist built his career with more than fifty films, more than 100 plays and participation in television series. This 1959 film was one of the most important of his career. “Making Macario would be the pinnacle of my happiness,” he said in an interview. The Mexican actor died this Saturday at the age of 98. Lifelong actor of Televisa, member of the Hollywood Academy and friend of Luis Buñuel, López Tarso has remained forever in the history of cinema together with myths like María Félix, Pedro Infante or Jorge Negrete.
The first approach López Tarso had to acting was at the age of eight, when his parents took him to what he often recounted as a tent theater performance. When the lights went out and the curtain opened, the child was shocked. Some time later, at the age of 24, he entered the School of Fine Arts Theater. But before that he had gone through the seminary, where he entered only because of his interest in continuing his studies – he never intended to become a priest – and because of military service. “Luckily I caught the machine gun company. Because the machine gun was mounted on a jeep, I was always in the vehicle; my companions were on foot,” he said in an interview a few days after his birthday in January.
In 1954, the actor made his film debut in a film that nearly drove him to retire, director Chano Urueta’s The Unknown. “I’m not interested in that kind of cinema,” he told the producer. As he explained in an interview with journalist Joaquín López-Dóriga, his character would arrive at the morgue in a hat and raincoat, see a corpse and say three words: “Yes, that’s it.” “That was all my participation. What is that? I don’t see myself or know who I am,” he recalled.
Those were the golden years of Mexican cinema, a period between the mid-1930s and 1950s, when the industry shone with actors such as Dolores del Río, Carlos López Moctezuma, Pedro Armendáriz and Emilio El Indio Fernández. López Tarso continued to work in cinema despite this first bad experience, sharing the cast with José Ángel Espinoza in El hombre de papel (1963) or with Lucha Villa in El gallo de oro (1964); Luis Buñuel directed Nazarín (1958); by Luis Alcoriza in Tarahumara (1964) or by Roberto Gavaldón in La vida inútil de Pito Pérez (1969). Gavaldón also directed Macario, which was nominated for an Oscar in 1960.
Actor Ignacio López Tarso during the presentation of the film “Morenita: el escándalo” November 25, 2009 in Mexico City. Jam Media (LatinContent via Getty Images)
“When we are born we already bring death, hidden in the liver or in the stomach or here in the heart, which one day will stop,” says the character of Macario in the film starring López Tarso, “that can also be Out on to sit in a tree that hasn’t grown yet but will fall on you when you’re old.” “Since Macario, I’ve become a godson of death,” the actor said in an interview recalling that he didn’t believe in the turn of the millennium when he was young and now hopes to be 100 years old.
He kept working in theater, the “great pleasure” that the Covid pandemic took away from him. He was recognized in this art in 1954 when he played the Mexican Emperor in Moctezuma II by Sergio Magaña’s playwright. He soon became an indispensable actor for other Mexican playwrights such as Emilio Carballido and Luisa Josefina Hernández, working in Spanish and English classical theater productions. Throughout his career he also recited corridos on the Mexican Revolution and many years later ventured into the Mexican version of Hello, Dolly! with Silvia Pinal.
In recent years, his biggest regret is not going on stage. They also complained that they didn’t call him to watch TV. “They think that at 97 I’m a forgotten shell who can’t get out of bed. Well no! I’m very active,” he said. It wasn’t until April that word broke that he would be starring in the Televisa series Neighbors, where he played the father of Doña Lorena, played by Ana Bertha Espín.
Since 2016 he has been a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. When Alfonso Cuarón’s film Roma reached the Oscars, the interpreter said he would give his voice to the Mexican film. This recognition was added to others such as the Golden Gate Award, which he won twice; the Ariel de Oro, which he received for his film career in 2007, and the National Science and Arts Award in 2015. His artistic career combines union and politics. López Tarso was General Secretary of the National Association of Actors and the Guild of Film Directors and Similar Unions; Federal deputy from 1988 to 1991, among other things member of the radio, television and film commission of the federal district and of the culture commission.
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