Juan Diego

Juan Diego Ruiz Moreno was born in Bormujos (Seville) on December 14, 1942. “I spent a completely normal childhood in rural areas,” he declared. Although he loved his town, to which, according to him, he almost always returned at Easter, he did not like farm work, so he decided to become an actor, so he studied at the Conservatory of Music and Declamation, in Madrid. . “I told my father and he answered me: ‘What are you going to become a circus performer?’ Circus performers are those of the circus. I was in amateur groups and they said: ‘You have to go to Madrid in August, when the companies are formed, and set foot in the Gijón café.’ That’s how I did it”.

Since Juan Diego began acting in the theater, he surprised audiences with works like “Waiting for Godot”, which had a great impact. In 1971 he led a well-known actors’ strike together with Concha Velasco , to obtain a reduction in the working day. He debuted on television in the series My son and I , and after becoming a regular on the small screen, he jumped to the movies with Fantasia… 3 . However, his true consolidation in this medium would come with Los santos inocentes , an impressive adaptation of the novel by Miguel Delibes , directed by Mario Camus . In the legendary film, Juan Diego he played an arrogant and insensitive ‘Andalusian gentleman’, “el señorito Iván”, which has remained in the memory as one of his best works.

He paid homage to the acting profession in Fernando Fernán Gómez ‘s El voyage a nunparte , and gave a convincing incarnation of the Caudillo, Francisco Franco, in Dragon Rapide . Although at the end of the 80s he decided to focus more on his career on stage, with memorable productions such as ‘El lector por horas’, occasionally Juan Diego  played roles in the cinema in titles such as Jarrapellejos , Pasodoble , La noche oscura or Jamón, Jamón . He won the Goya for best supporting actor for El rey pasmado and París Timbuktu , and the corresponding one for best leading actor forGo away from me , where he played an actor in his fifties in low hours, and father of another Juan Diego : Juan Diego Botto . Among the best works by  Juan Diego , the priest in a crisis of faith in You’re the One (A Story of Then) stands out, directed by José Luis Garci , and the desperate father in Padre Courage , a television miniseries directed by Benito Zambrano . He also played one of those responsible for the Puerto Hurraco massacre, in El seventh day .

Since 2005 he had great television success for his role as commissioner Don Lorenzo, one of the most popular characters in Los hombres de Paco . He combined the recording of the series with movies like Casual Day or Lope . Shy in character, and little given to airing his intimacies in the media, it is known that when he turned 58 he became the father of a child. Upon his death, he left the feature films Venus and Historias pending release .