Legendary Mexican actor Ignacio López Tarso dies at 98

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If I had to keep one feature of the Mexican actor Ignacio López Tarso, who died this Saturday at the age of 98 due to intestinal occlusion and severe pneumonia, it would be his incombustible nature.

He practically never stopped acting throughout almost a century of life in which he captivated millions of Mexicans.

The actors who worked with him coincide in his passion for working on stage.

And outside of them, because although his favorite medium in recent years was the theater, the veteran interpreter also had a close relationship with cinema and television.

López Tarso was born on January 15, 1925 in Mexico City and was always passionate about acting in film, theater and television and only stopped when he was attacked by diseases or during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Ignacio López Tarso poses for a photo during the recording of a series about the life of singer Gloria Trevi in ​​Mexico City, on November 7, 2022.Medios y Media / Getty Images

In fact, until this 2023, López Tarso (1925-2023) was one of the few figures still alive from the so-called Golden Age of Mexican cinema (1936-1959).

During that time he could be seen sporting a carriage and a mustache alongside immortal stars such as María Félix in films such as

(1958).

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The actor's talent led him to work with the best, highlighting among them the Spanish filmmaker exiled in Mexico, Luis Buñuel.

Together, López Tarso and Buñuel brought

(1959) to the big screen.

But beyond his collaboration with the Spanish genius, the actor participated in more than 50 films throughout his life.

And they seemed few to him, as he acknowledged in an interview in 2016 on the occasion of the Cervantino performing arts festival.

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“If in my life I have made 50 films, it is very little.

And of the 50, I have about 20 that I like, another 20 that are regular, and 10 that I don't even mention.

We better forget them ”, he pointed out then.

His career earned him the award for best actor on two occasions at the Ariel Mexican Film Awards.

One was in 1973 for the film

and another in 2007, which was a recognition of his film career.

On television he also made merits to win the affection of the public and critics, with the participation in series such as

(1981).

In recent years he has been seen a lot in theaters with works such as

or

, the latter a piece by David Mamet premiered in 2019 that served the actor as a pretext to review his theatrical career together with his son Juan Ignacio Aranda.

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The words of many of the best playwrights of the 20th century, such as Arthur Miller, Luigi Pirandello or Eugene Ionesco, have been put in his mouth.

The actor is honored that in Mexico City there is a theater that bears his name, a fact that, after his death, becomes even more relevant to honor his talent and memory.

Apart from his artistic vocation, he explored other fields such as politics, a field in which he managed to be a federal deputy for the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) from 1988 to 1991.

In July 2019, López Tarso gave his opinion on the political change experienced in the country and highlighted the work of his beloved party, the PRI, which ruled Mexico for more than 70 years.

"It was time for another party to come along with enough force to displace it (the PRI) the change of government and style of governing is good, it is good for Mexico, so they will discover that the best they have had is the PRI" said the actor in an interview.

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In it, he refused to comment on the work of the current president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who has governed since December 1, 2018 after winning with the leftist National Regeneration Movement (Morena).

The last name López Tarso is not entirely real, since the real name of the actor is Ignacio López López.

Changing it was a recommendation from the writer Xavier Villaurrutia

, who warned him that with such a common name he would not achieve success.

The 'Tarsus', owes it to the Roman apostle Saint Paul, since he was originally from the city of Tarsus, in Turkey, a name that seduced the actor and accompanied him during his successes.

The actor, unmistakable due to his abundant gray hair, his brown complexion and slight indigenous features, died with the certainty of having done what he loved the most until the last minute: getting on stage, playing someone else to, thus, tell stories to people