Tuco Ramírez (full name: Tuco Benedicto Pacífico Juan María Ramírez) is one of the three eponymous characters from Sergio Leone's spaghetti western The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. In the film, Tuco is identified as the ugly (incorrectly as the bad in the film's trailers) through in-film texts. He is of Mexican origin and also the only character of whom the audience learns any history (in comparison to his companion Blondie or enemy Angel Eyes). In the movie he is played by Eli Wallach, whose performance was based on a similar character he played in How the West Was Won.
Tuco is a greedy, self-serving bandit wanted for a string of crimes involving, but not limited to, armed robbery, rape, bigamy, abandoning his wife and children, receiving and selling stolen goods, etc. He has committed enough crimes to earn himself a $3,000 bounty. It is dubious, however that he has actually committed all the crimes listed in the film: Blondie and Tuco's arrangement at the beginning entails building up Tuco's reputation as a bandit in order to receive a higher ransom. Tuco's greed is also shown when he encounters the ambulance-cart full of dead confederate soldiers in the desert as he heartlessly digs through the pockets of the clothes on corpses.
Tuco is also shown as extremely vengeful. When Blondie leaves Tuco in the desert at the beginning of the movie, Tuco becomes obsessed with exacting revenge by leading Blondie on a forced march in harsh desert conditions until Blondie expires.
Despite Tuco's greedy nature, he regards his own family highly. He is devastated after his brother Pablo Ramírez informs him that their mother has been dead for a long time. His brother, who is a priest at a mission turned field hospital, helps Tuco to rehabilitate Blondie. Pablo also tells Tuco that their father had also died recently, which is why Pablo was not at the monastery to meet Tuco and Blondie when they first arrived. Tuco remains convinced that his way of living is better than his brother's, thinking his brother became a priest because it was easier. Even though they end trading blows, Tuco still speaks highly of his brother to Blondie when the two leave for Sad Hill cemetery (not knowing Blondie has witnessed their exchange).
Tuco also has a faux-religious side to him. Sometimes when encountering corpses or killing someone, he performs a hasty sign of the cross.
Despite his greed and occasional simplicity (Blondie calls him an idiot indirectly twice in the film) Tuco is shown as being a very capable outlaw. Though not as quick on the draw as Blondie, he's still extremely accurate with a gun as displayed when he tries out his new gun behind the gun-shop and when he and Blondie take out Angel Eyes's assistants. He also bathes with his gun as seen when one of the three bounty hunters who tried to kill him at the beginning of the movie tries to get him by surprise at the abandoned hotel.
He also appears extremely durable physically as he is able to find a town after Blondie leaves him in the desert with no horse, water or shade with a noose around his neck and his hands tied. Later on he torments Blondie in a similar fashion who finally faints from exhaustion. When he's being interrogated violently by Wallace and Angel Eyes he fights back briefly but eventually succumbs when Wallace begins to press his thumbs into his eyes. However Tuco remains defiant and is able to kill Wallace by throwing him off the train when he (manacled to Wallace) gets up to urinate.
Tuco also seems extremely proficient in the assembling of guns. After surviving his ordeal in the desert he enters a gun-shop and assembles a new gun for himself, combining a revolver frame, breech cylinder and barrel from three different guns.
He also manages to surprise Blondie twice in the film. Enlisting the help from his former gang who are all killed by Blondie when they enter his room through the front door, Tuco instead comes through the window and tries to force Blondie to hang himself. Blondie is saved by sheer luck as a Union cannon shoots the hotel and causes the floor to collapse. Later Tuco is able to track him down by finding campfires and cigars that Blondie has left behind.
Tuco often proclaims that there are "two kinds" of something depending on the subject at hand. Early in the film when he and Blondie are splitting the money from their latest scam he states: "There are two kinds of people in this world, my friend: Those with a rope around their neck and the people who have the job of doing the cutting." Later after he manages to catch Blondie off guard he remarks: "There are two kinds of spurs in this world, my friend: Those who come by the door and those who come by the window". In the end Blondie uses his catchphrase "There are two kinds of people in the world: Those with loaded guns and those who dig. You dig!"