Relatives and companions of Juan Diego fired the actor at the funeral home

Madrid, Apr 28 (EFE) .- Relatives and colleagues of Juan Diego, in addition to personalities such as the Minister of Culture and Sports, Miquel Iceta, have approached the Madrid funeral home of San Isidro to say goodbye to the actor, who died this Thursday at 79 years.

Paco Tous, Michelle Jenner and Hugo Silva have been among the first to arrive at the place to offer their condolences to the two sons and the partner of Juan Diego, with whom they worked on the successful series “Paco’s Men”, which returned to television last year, a comeback in which the late actor briefly participated.

In addition to other professional colleagues such as actor Juan Echanove, Iceta has approached the place, on behalf of the Ministry and the Government, according to what he said.

“Many of us knew that he was suffering from an illness, but that does not take away the pain when the final moment arrives. He was a very loved person in the profession and outside of it, with a very important work, one of the most characterized and most beloved actors of our panorama”, pointed out the minister.

In addition, “he was a person also committed to democracy and politics and what we have to do is join the pain of his relatives and never forget what his work has been,” he added.

Roberto Álvarez, who produced Juan Diego’s last plays-“The cat on a zinc roof” and “The colonel has no one to write to him”- has highlighted “his eagerness to fight for his profession, his commitment to theater and with himself since he was working until his last breath”.

Of “The colonel has no one to write to him” he only made three performances. He had a very important lung condition that prevented him from acting but “he was able to go to the hospital in the morning and go to work in the afternoon so that the show could go ahead, thinking of his colleagues that they should not miss the opportunity to work that day, and in the theater and in the spectators”.

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For Armando del Río, who coincided with him in his first film, “Jamón, Jamon” (1992), he was “one of the greats of cinema and a wonderful person.”

Del Río has recalled how they had to repeat the scene they had together twenty times. “I was a very nervous kid who left there very depressed and he was the only one who gave me a few words of encouragement. Then I met three years later in theater and we spent a year on tour that was wonderful, my best professional experience so far” .

And Antonio Hortelano has ensured that Juan Diego made everyone feel special. “We owe a lot to a person like Juan Diego in all aspects.” He worked with him before the pandemic on a film, “Venus”, still to be released.

The secretary general of the Union of Actors, Iñaki Guevara, for his part recalled his work as a defender of the rights of actors. “He was on the commission of the 11 who got the day off for the theater and is a founding member of the Union of Actors and Actresses. He is a great actor, a great person, a great member,” he pointed out.

The journalist Isabel Gemio has also approached the funeral home, who has said that, despite being “a sad day”, Juan Diego “would say that we don’t have to be sad, that he has had a wonderful life, doing what he liked, passion for his trade, with brutal dignity and honesty”.

The actor, born in 1942 in the province of Seville, “never made concessions to the commercial or to anything that was out of interest, but what his heart, his ideology, and his coherence dictated,” added the communicator.

After the wake, the remains of Juan Diego will be transferred to the Main Hall of the Spanish Theater, which will host the funeral chapel this Friday as “an act of homage to one of the great Spanish interpreters and a benchmark on the national scene.”