Celebrity Biographies
Juan Luis Galiardo
The veteran actor Juan Luis Galiardo passed away on June 22, 2012 at the Clínica de la Zarzuela in Madrid. There he was in palliative care as a result of “a rapid and devastating disease”, as explained by his representative. For five decades he was a regular face of Spanish cinema, television and theater. He was 72 years old.
Born in San Roque (Cádiz), on February 2, 1940, due to the transfer of his father to Badajoz, he spent his youth there. He enrolled in Agricultural Engineering and later in Economics and Law, but he left it because after making friends with several students from the Official School of Cinematography he began to be interested in the Seventh Art, for which he also joined this institution. Before finishing his training, he was already on the stage as a founding member of the Independent Experimental Theater (TEI), directed by Miguel Narros .
He began his career in feature film with a brief role, as La Mica’s boyfriend in El camino , Ana Mariscal ‘s adaptation of the classic book by Miguel Delibes . He was soon one of the protagonists of the choir Novios 68 , led by Pedro Lazaga , which also included José Luis López Vázquez , Arturo Fernández and Alfredo Landa . During the 1960s, Galiardo did not stop starring in movies, almost always in leading man roles. He shot numerous titles such as You will not want your neighbor’s wife , The Song of Oblivion , Las nenas del mini-mini , Pepa Doncel, Stress is three, three or Coqueluche . She came to appear in some international production such as Marco Antonio and Cleopatra , starring Charlton Heston .
In the 1980s, he spent a long time in Mexico, where under the direction of Arturo Ripstein he filmed Trace of Death and developed an intense activity on television. Back in Spain, he founded his own production company, Penélope Films, with which he managed to launch the film El disputado voto del señor Cayo , again based on a text by Delibes, and the series Turno de oficio , where he played the lawyer Juan Luis Funes ‘El Chepa’ together with Carme Elias and a Juan Echanove who established himself for the general public. It was a turning point in his career towards more mature roles in various films. He was under the orders of prestigious directors such as Luis García Berlanga( Everyone to jail ), Francisco Regueiro ( Madregilda ), Fernando Trueba ( The girl with your eyes ) or Carlos Saura ( Pajarico , Tango ). He was Fidel Castro in God or Demon , and he became the fetish actor for José Luis García Sánchez , who directed him in The Flight of the Dove and the trilogy made up of Sighs of Spain (and Portugal) , There is always a path to the right and goodbye with the heart. For the latter, the academy awarded him the Goya, despite the fact that it hardly had any commercial impact, more as a tribute to his career and his indisputable charisma than for the merits of a very minor film.
Possibly the best work on screen by Juan Luis Galiardo is the lonely man, in need of someone to celebrate his birthday with as a Family , by newcomer Fernando León de Aranoa . He was the most illustrious character in Spanish Literature, in El caballero don Quixote , and also his creator, Cervantes, in the mediocre Miguel y William . On television he stood out in La Regenta .
Juan Luis Galiardo was together with the also actress María Elías , with whom he married “in articulo mortis”. Despite the disease, he has passed away with his boots on. He had just toured as the lead in Moliére’s “The Miser”, was appearing in feature films such as The Spark of Life , and was shooting a batch of episodes of the series Grand Hotel .