One of the last of the greats from Mexico’s “golden age of cinema”, corredo singer and actor Antonio Aguilar, died Tuesday in Mexico City. He was 88.
Aguilar, the only Hispanic performer to have have sold-out concerts at Madison Square Garden (six times!), was never the sexy lead that Pedro Infante was, but he had no peer when it came to singing on horseback. On-screen a combination John Wayne and Roy Rogers, off-screen he really was a rancher and horseman. Reportedly he was once asked to stand for the Presidency, but turned it down saying he preferred his horses.
His cremated remains were scattered at his beloved “El Zochiate” ranch in Zacatecas, where he was born on May 17, 1919.
Like other Mexican actors and singers, he doubled as a producer and screenwriter. His son, pop singer Pepe Aguilar, was born in San Antonio, Texas, where Antonio and his wife, actress Flor Silvestre, were performing at the time (yeah, Flor was working well past her due date… Mexican entertainers work hard!). Antonio himself worked as an “illegal alien” in Los Angeles for a few months as a young man.
As an adult, he appeared in several Hollywood movies, notably the John Wayne-Rock Hudson feature, The Undefeated (1969).
Aguilar was active in the movies from the early 1950s through the 1990s. His last role was as Pancho Villa in 1994. He wrote and produced screenplays throughout the 70s and 80s. Like Wayne and Rogers, he was a living and breathing, horse-lovin’ (and gloriously singing) embodiment of the national mythology.
Though he was cremated after dying from pneumonia (he had been hospitalized two weeks ago, and didn’t respond to treatment), he sang about wanting to be buried with THE flag…
¡Aiiiiii-yaaaaaaaaa!
