After several days in a delicate state of health, this Saturday, March 11, the first actor Ignacio López Tarso died, at the age of 98. Almost two months ago, on the occasion of his birthday, he had expressed his wish to reach 100 years of age and die on stage.
The first actor had been hospitalized in Mexico City since last Friday, March 3, due to pneumonia and intestinal occlusion, as confirmed by his son Juan Ignacio Aranda.
Ignacio López Tarso was one of the most renowned actors on television, film, and the Mexican theater scene. Born on January 15, 1925 in Mexico City, he studied at the Academy of Dramatic Art of the National Institute of Fine Arts (INBA), at just 24 years of age, after a brief foray into the military, and as a farm worker. in California, where an accident left him with serious injuries, and he must return to Mexico and rest for a year. After his recovery, it is then that he decides -in 1949- the course of his life and enters the theater academy, where he was under the tutelage of Xavier Villaurrutia and Salvador Novo.
His theatrical debut as a student of Fine Arts was in the play “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” by William Shakespeare, and his professional debut, in 1951, with the play “Born Yesterday” by Garson Kanin.
His career spanned seven decades and he became a benchmark in cinema thanks to his role in “Macario” (1960), by Roberto Gavaldón. From that moment on, he participated in fifty films, including classics such as “Cri Cri, the singing cricket” (1963), “El hombre de papel” (1963), “El gallo de oro” (1964), “Tarahumara” (1965), “The useless life of Pito Pérez” (1970), “El profeta Mimi” (1972), “Rapiña” (1973) or “Los albañiles” (1976).
Apart from his artistic career, the union and political one is added. 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, and member of the Commission for Radio, Television and Cinematography and Culture, among others.
In 2007, the Mexican Academy of Cinematographic Arts and Sciences (AMACC) awarded him the Ariel de Oro for film career.
For its part, the Mexican Institute of Cinematography (Imcine) gave him a laconic farewell on Twitter:
“Life was not easy, Macario, but it was good living together.” Thank you, Ignacio López Tarso. We hug family and friends.
