Born in Seville, the actor Juan Diego He died this morning in a Madrid clinic, at the age of 79, after suffering various ailments in recent times. He is an inseparable part of Spanish cinema at the end of the dictatorship, although he had debuted on the screens in the mid-1960s. He liked to play extreme characters, ideal for his extraverted style, sometimes so provocative.
In 1966 he was part of the cast of ‘Fantasia… 3’, a curious film by Eloy de la Iglesia inspired by stories by the Brothers Grimm and ‘The Wizard of Oz’. In that year she also starred in several installments of ‘Study 1’, TVE’s drama space. He would repeat with De la Iglesia with ‘Algo amargo en la boca’ (1969) and would appear in a co-production by Ettore Scola, ‘El demonio de loscelos’ (1970), alongside Marcello Mastroianni, Monica Vitti and Giancarlo Giannini. Another of his moments from this period, also in ‘Estudio 1’, would be the adaptation made in 1972 of ‘Death of a Salesman’, by Arthur Miller.
Television –’Suspiros de España’ and ‘El pícaro’, both from 1974– alternated in his career with the theater, in which he had debuted in 1957, and with a more independent cinema, as in the case of ‘Yo creo que&mldr ;’ (1975), an experimental film about cinema itself made by Antonio Artero.
Anti-Franco movements
The style of black comedy that José Luis García Sánchez would handle would work like a glove, working with him on ‘Colorín colorado’ (1976), ‘La corte de Faraón’ (1985), ‘Pasodoble’ (1988), ‘The longest night’ (1991) and ‘Tirano Banderas’ (1993). He also participated in ‘Dolores’ (1981), García Sánchez’s documentary on Dolores Ibárruri, La Pasionaria, something very consequential considering the activity carried out by Diego in the trade union and anti-Franco movements of the 1960s.
He was also attracted to projects a bit against the current without disdaining a more commercial cinema. Thus he intervened in ‘El buscón’ (1979) by Luciano Berriatúa, an adaptation of Quevedo’s picaresque, or ‘Cuentos eroticos’ (1980), a collection of tragicomic disquisitions on sex; Diego and Ana Belén starred in the Emma Cohen episode, ‘Tiempos rotos’.
One of its milestones would be the composition of the character of Señorito Iván, the landowner obsessed with hunting ‘The Holy Innocents’, version of the novel by Miguel Delibes made by Mario Camus in 1984, winner that year at the Cannes festival. He then became a regular face of rural and plateau cinema with his appearances in ‘Jarrapellejos’ (1988) or ‘El 7º día’ (2004).
Another important moment in his career came when he agreed to give life to Francisco Franco in ‘Dragon Rapide’ (1986), Jaime Camino’s film set in the days imminently before the uprising, in July 1936. It was a great characterization, without falling into gratuitous parody.
Television and cinema against the current
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He continued to be required by the most important directors of those years, such as Fernando Fernan Gomez –’The trip to nowhere’ (1986)–, Gonzalo Herralde –Laura, the sky arrives at night’ (1987)–, Carlos Saura –for whom he gave another of his best performances, that of Fray Juan de la Cruz in ‘ The Dark Night’ (1989)–, Imanol Uribe –’The Stunned King’ (1991)–, Bigas Luna –’Jamón, Jamón’ (1992)– or Luis García Berlanga, with whom he worked on the director’s posthumous film, ‘Paris-Timbuktu’ (1999).
As of 2000, I continue to alternate between television, with ‘Padre coraje’ (2002) or ‘Los hombres de Paco’ (2005), for example, with more film proposals against the current, as in the case of ‘Smoking room’ (2002), ‘ Torremolinos 73’ (2003), ‘El triumph’ (2006) –adaptation of Francisco Casavella’s rogue novel–, and ‘Uncertain glory’ (2017) or his presence in the film by Mexican Arturo Ripstein ‘La virgen de la lujuria’ (2002). One of his last roles was that of Daniel ‘El Guitarras’ in ‘El Cover’ (2021). He won three Goya awards, one of them for ‘Vete de mí’ (2006), for which he also won the Silver Shell in San Sebastián.