Ignacio López Tarso

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Ignacio López Tarso

Born Ignacio López López
January 15, 1925 (1925-01-15) (age 83).
Flag of Mexico Mexico City, Mexico.

Ignacio López Tarso (born Ignacio López López, January 15, 1925) is a Mexican actor of stage, film and television. He is considered as one of the country's finest actors.

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[edit] Early life

Ignacio López was born in Mexico City. His parents were Alfonso López Bermúdez and Ignacia López Herrera. He lived his childhood in several Mexican cities besides Mexico City, such as Veracruz, Hermosillo, Navojoa and Guadalajara, due his father’s job. His siblings are Alfonso and Marta.

When he was living in Guadalajara, his parents took him to see a play. He was 8 or 9 years old, and was so excited watching scenery and the performance of the actors. That first contact with the artistic world was engraved in his mind forever and it sealed his destiny in this way.

He also lived in Valle de Bravo, Estado de México, and studied secondary school there. The economic problems of his parents kept him from attending high school. But a catholic priest helped him to join a seminary to keep studying and it didn’t matter whether he had vocation or not to be a priest.

So that, he went to a seminary in Temascalcingo, Estado de México, and later he joined a seminary in Mexico City. After his studies finished, he left the seminary due to a lack of interest in being a priest.

He did military service when he was 20 years old and did it in Querétaro where he was in barracks by almost a year, although he also was in Veracruz and Monterrey regiments. He reached the First Sergeant grade. After his militar service finished, a general told him that he would be a top soldier and gave him his support to attend Military School, but Ignacio leaved the army after thinking and noting that military career wasn’t his vocation, even though he liked the discipline.

[edit] Personal life

He worked in Mexico City as a sales agent of a clothes company. After that job, he and some friends enrolled in a Mexico-United States agreement to work in the vineyards and orange fields in California. Ignacio’s dream was to work in United States some period and return to Mexico with many dollars. So, he and his friends were working in an orange grove in Merced, California. After few days working there, Ignacio was climbing orange tree, then he slept and fell down, seriously injuring his vertebral column. This accident caused his sad returning to Mexico without get his dream and with only 20 dollars in his bag. He continued his rehabilitation therapy in bed by almost a year in Mexico City.

After his recovery, Ignacio attended in 1949 the Dramatic Art Academy of the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City.

He married Clara Aranda and both had three children: Susana, Gabriela and Juan Ignacio, who also become an actor, artistically well known as Juan Ignacio Aranda.

López Tarso also was politician and became a federal deputy. He also had important jobs in various organizations and trade-unions related to the actor and cinematographic associations.

[edit] Career

[edit] Theatre

His early experience in stage started when he was in the catholic seminary. There, a priest who came from United States organized a group to perform plays. Ignacio joined this group and also learned to read oral poetry and books of classical plays, especially plays of Lope de Vega and Calderón de la Barca.

When Ignacio was in therapy on bed after that accident suffered in California, he had time reading books of poetry and theatre, especially a poetry book of Xavier Villaurrutia. Ignacio was a fan of Villaurrutia. Some day, Ignacio knew that Villaurrutia was teaching theatre in Palacio de Bellas Artes. Then, when he recovered from the accident, he went to the Palacio to meet Villaurrutia and ask him an autograph. Villaurrutia received him and invited him to hear his lessons. At first, Ignacio was a simply listener, but next days, Ignacio joined formally the theatre academy. That time, Ignacio was 24 years old.

Besides Villaurrutia, Ignacio López had other masters such as Salvador Novo, Clementina Otero, Celestino Gorostiza, André Moreau, Seki Sano, Fernando Wagner, Fernando Torre Lapham, among other ones.

His professional stage debut was in 1951, performing the play Born yesterday by Garson Kanin. Ignacio López has performed plays of William Shakespeare such as A Midsummer Night's Dream, Macbeth, Othello and King Lear. He also performed The Crucible by Arthur Miller. Other performed plays are: Oedipus the King and Oedipus at Colonus by Sophocles, Hippolytus by Euripides, La Celestina by Fernando de Rojas, Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand, The Miser by Molière, El villano en su rincón by Lope de Vega, The Mayor of Zalamea by Calderón de la Barca, Exit the king by Eugène Ionesco, among other plays.

Ignacio López also has performed works made by authors such as Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, Miguel de Cervantes, Guillén de Castro, Hugo Argüelles, Emilio Carballido, Ramón María del Valle-Inclán and other writers.

Ignacio has performed more than one hundred plays throughout his career.

[edit] Movies

His first film was a movie called La desconocida (1954) directed by Chano Urueta. His role in this film was not important.

Perhaps his best film was Macario (1959) directed by Roberto Gavaldón. This film reflects Mexican culture about the death, especially about the Day of the Dead, which is a Mexican tradition, unique in its kind. This picture won several Mexican and international awards.

Another worthy film of López Tarso was Rosa Blanca. This movie was filmed in 1961 and curiously was censured by political interests in that time, but it was released belatedly in 1972. This movie was directed by Roberto Gavaldón.

Other of his outstanding performances in movies were: Cri Cri, el grillito cantor (1963) directed by Tito Davison, The paper man (1963) directed by Ismael Rodríguez, La vida inútil de Pito Pérez (1969) directed by Roberto Gavaldón, The prophet Mimi (1972) directed by José Estrada, Rapiña (1973) directed by Carlos Enrique Taboada, The bricklayers (1976) directed by Jorge Fons, among other productions. Ignacio López belongs to the Golden Age of Mexican cinema, and he has shared starring with actors such as Dolores del Río, Marga López, Carlos López Moctezuma, Elsa Aguirre, Luis Aguilar, Katy Jurado, Irasema Dilián, Pedro Armendáriz, Emilio “el indio” Fernández, and other ones.

Ignacio has acted in half hundred films and appeared in documentaries and in one short subject.

[edit] Other artistic areas

Ignacio López has appeared in more than twenty television series and has recorded albums where he recites poems and corridos, mainly about Mexican Revolution. He has released eight albums.

[edit] Origin of the stage name

His master Xavier Villaurrutia advised Ignacio to replace his birth name with some more attractive stage name. Ignacio found inspiration with the history of Paul the Apostle, who was called “Paul of Tarsus” or “Saul (his Hebrew name) of Tarsus", because he was from a city called Tarsus. “Tarsus” in Spanish is “Tarso”. Ignacio liked name "Tarso" and replaced "López López" with "Lopez Tarso".

[edit] Awards

Ignacio López Tarso won many Mexican and internacional awards. The following are some of his most important won awards and recognitions:

López Tarso also got two Ariel nominations in 1974 and 1975, for The Prophet Mimi and Rapiña, respectively.

[edit] Filmography

  • La desconocida (1954)
  • Chilam Balam (1955)
  • Felíz año, amor mío (1955)
  • Vainilla, bronce y morir (Una mujer más) (1956)
  • Soldiers of Pancho Villa (La cucaracha) (1958)
  • Empty star (La estrella vacía) (1958)
  • Nazarín (1958)
  • El hambre nuestra de cada día (1959)
  • Ellas también son rebeldes (1959)
  • Macario (1959)
  • Sonatas (Aventuras del Marqués de Bradomin) (1959)
  • The guns of Juana Gallo (Juana Gallo) (1960)
  • La sombra del caudillo (1960)
  • Y Dios la llamó tierra (1960)
  • My son, the hero (Los hermanos del hierro) (1961)
  • Rosa Blanca (1961)
  • Heart of a child (Corazón de niño) (1962)
  • Días de otoño (1962)
  • Furia en el edén (1962)
  • The bandit (La bandida) (1962)
  • Cri Cri, el grillito cantor (1963)
  • The paper man (El hombre de papel) (1963)
  • Un hombre en la trampa (1963)
  • The golden cockerel (El gallo de oro) (1964)
  • Always further on (Tarahumara) (1964)
  • Pedro Páramo (1966)
  • Las visitaciones del diablo (1967)
  • Largo viaje hacia la muerte (L.S.D.) (1967)
  • The door and the woman of the butcher (La puerta y la mujer del carnicero), episode: The woman of the butcher (1968)
  • La trinchera (1968)
  • La vida inútil de Pito Pérez (1969)
  • La generala (1970)
  • Cayó de la gloria el diablo (1971)
  • The prophet Mimi (El profeta Mimí) (1972)
  • En busca de un muro (1973)
  • Rapiña (1973)
  • Resigned for reasons of health (Renuncia por motivos de salud) (1975)
  • La casta divina (1976)
  • The bricklayers (Los albañiles) (1976)
  • Los amantes fríos, episode: El soplador de vidrio (1977)
  • The children of the Sanchez (Los hijos de Sánchez) (1977)
  • Antonieta (1982)
  • Toña Machetes (1983)
  • Under the Volcano (Bajo el volcán) (1984)
  • The other (El otro) (1984)
  • Astucia (1985)
  • Muelle rojo (1987)
  • Banderas, the tyrant (Tirano Banderas) (1993)
  • Reclusorio, episode: Quiero quedarme en la cárcel (1995)
  • Santo Luzbel (1996)

[edit] External links

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