“The show is over, don’t mess around. He who saw me, he saw me. Nothing remains”. This November 25, the epitaph that Héctor Bonilla wrote years before, anticipating the moment of his departure, was fulfilled. They have been days in which the family has stated that they feel calm and satisfied with the life of “a great man”, as his youngest son Fernando Bonilla describes it at the entrance to the Palace of Fine Arts, and it is that this Monday, November 28, was honored in the most important venue of cultural life in Mexico.
Amid applause that lasted for several minutes, the actor’s ashes were placed in the center of the lobby of the large venue, his wife Sofía Álvarez was escorted by their children Sergio, Fernando and Leonor, as well as their grandchildren.
An honor guard headed by his wife Sofía, his son Fernando, Alejandra Frausto, head of the Ministry of Culture and the general director of INBAL, Lucina Jiménez López, was the preamble to the tribute that included different voices, some spontaneous, music, various minutes of applause, cheers, poetry, jokes, anecdotes, a Goya and of course, tears in memory of the actor.
“Our dear Héctor, how many times did you not make us burst into tears or become deeply aware of existence and its pains, because you knew life like few others, the story in the characters that you embodied with dedication. Héctor Bonilla was more than a great actor, he was a natural, professional and blameless leader who went from theory to action without hesitation (…) He was an immense actor and an exemplary citizen, his talent deserves the tribute that we pay him here today in the main venue for the arts in Mexico, because his legacy does not end with his departure, ”Frausto said in his speech.
With more than half a century of work, he leaves a void in the artistic community and in the people of Mexico, but his films remain, his work on television, in theater, his immortalized voice, the narration of endearing works and the teachings to generations. The Secretary of Culture also alluded to his “enormous ideological congruence” his commitment and responsibility as creator “of the people and for the people.”
Recognition in Fine Arts
“For four years and four days I thought with terror that this day would inevitably come and today I am here surrounded by dear friends, our children, our grandchildren. Somewhere Héctor is telling me ´Sofí, it’s your turn, are we there or not?’, and well, yes, today it’s time to thank you for this long and complicated process (…) Thanks to you Héctor for your enormous effort and discipline every day, for your immense love for your friends, your profession, your children, your grandchildren, your public and me”, said Sofía, his wife.
His widow jokingly assured “This is more for us than for him, because he didn’t like recognition, but no way now he grinds.”
For his part, Fernando, his son, shared: “My father was a man who always knew how to differentiate his private life from his public life, he performed very well in both, he was a teacher in that sense as in many others. We were fortunate to be very close to him and say goodbye to him in the privacy of his bedroom, with the people closest to him holding his hand. But today here, on the contrary, is a public act that tries to honor all that was also my father, because he touched many lives. It is an honor to be in this venue that belongs to the people of Mexico and that makes it a public act in the strict sense of the word.”
During the tribute it was pointed out that although he did not have a political party all his life, he opted for “the left”, which was very politically active and fought for social and labor equity inside and outside his union, “he participated in so many rallies, marches, assemblies and sit-ins, who should have already unveiled a plaque,” said his son Sergio.
In 1968 he was part of various mobilizations such as the famous march of silence, however on October 2 he was out of the city, “years later he would pay off that debt with the film “Rojo Amanecer”, a film that made visible to a large audience the crime committed by the State in Tlatelolco”, shares Sofía.
Héctor Bonilla twice rejected the offer to run for the Tlalpan delegation or mayor’s office, “he did not feel qualified for the position”, however in 2017 he accepted the invitation to run for a place in the Constituent Assembly that drafted the first constitution of Mexico City, “attended all the sessions,” he adds.
What few knew about Hector
During the tribute in which colleagues from the artistic union such as Demián Bichir, Sergio Corona, Evangelina Elizondo, Damián Alcázar, among others, also participated, details of Bonilla’s life were shared. As if it were a social gathering in his honor, they talked about the year of his birth, 1939, the same year that Sigmund Freud died. He was the last of six siblings and came to a world totally different from the current one, but those 83 were enough to enjoy life like few others.
Héctor Bonilla was not born in Tetela, Puebla, as everyone says, that was his father Rodolfo Bonilla, he “like the tamale cake, he was proudly a chilango”, a chilango that in 2019 was declared a living cultural heritage of Mexico City .
He was born in his house and died in his house, in the street of Niagara and Nigeria, respectively; He studied at Albert Einstein High School No. 15, then at High School 1 and 4 where he awakened his interest in the arts and knowledge. His first work, a student assembly with the work “Los de Abajo”. He studied law at UNAM in 1957, finally a “cover” for his true passion, American football, but with an accident that twisted his nose his sporting life was cut short, however the blue and gold accompanied him until death, because he was even cremated with his cougars pants on.
His hyperactivity led him to consider that studying law and doing sports was not enough and it occurred to him that he could also study theater, today that story is known and recognized by everyone… This is how the tribute passed, joined by fans of the actor, family members, colleagues and other people who added their condolences to the family that today claims to be calm, since Héctor “died at home, in peace, without pain and surrounded by his closest circle, who accompanied him until the end.”
Héctor Bonilla studied at the National School of Theater of the National Institute of Fine Arts of Mexico (INBA) and in 1962, he made his acting debut with the film “Jóvenes y bellas” (1962).
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