Mexican actor Ettore Bonillapassed away on November 25 due to cancer, had a prolific life around his greatest passion, theater and other disciplines that he discovered throughout his life.
“I’m sorry for the death of Ettore Bonilla, great actor, honest and always with firm convictions. I embrace Sofia, her children, family and friends“wrote the president of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, along with a photo in which they both embraced.
Born in 1939 in Mexico City, Bonilla had time to develop his acting skills in soap operas, television series or films, but he also worked as a director, producer and even a musician.
He studied at the National Theater School of the National Institute of Fine Arts of Mexico (INBA), where he developed the acting talent that would lead him to participate in more than 30 films and as many soap operas.
At 80 years old and despite suffering from kidney cancer since early 2019, he continued to practice his profession until his last days and this year received the Ariel de Oro award from the Mexican Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMACC ).
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This award, the highest honor awarded by the Mexican film industry, was the finishing touch to a stellar career that Bonilla catapulted internationally with “Rojo amanecer” (1990).a tape that recounts the student movement and the Tlatelolco massacre, in Mexico City, on October 2, 1968.
Another of the works that brought him great recognition was the comedy ‘¡Viva los muertos!’, in which the Mexican government implemented a program that offered free tickets to illiterate and lower-class children. “If we are strict, the only real acting school that exists is the theatre. If you have two months of rehearsals and then the time that the show lasts, you will always do better. But at the cinema… 15 shots? It’s nothing,” Bonilla explained in a tribute paid to him by the Ministry of Culture and the National Institute of Fine Arts (INBA) on August 14, 2019.
During this event, the artist assured EFE that the awards that gave him the most satisfaction were those “not promoted. I had the enormous satisfaction that authors of works told me that in that role I was the one who had made the best,” detailed the late actor, with a prolific career.
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Under his full name Héctor Hermilo Bonilla Rebentun, the actor was married to Mexican actress Socorro Bonilla between 1976 and 1983, and later, in 1985, he married Sofía Álvarez, also an actress, voice actress and narrator, with who lived to the end of her days…
During the tribute event to Bonilla’s 57-year career, full of emotions and memories, his wife had numerous words of thanks and recognition for whoever was her life partner: a hardworking and consistent man. “Héctor is an actor who works wherever it is required, however modest he may be. (…) He is a consistent and generous man: it is what it is and it is what it is”he said during the celebration.
The actor himself took this tribute and others he received during that year as a turning point, but he also made it clear that he still had a lot of energy and desire to move forward with his life and with his profession.
“I love life deeply, I am extremely lucky to have found my wife, I have lived with her for 38 years and I have three children and seven grandchildren whom I love deeply,” he explained during another tribute at the Cineteca Nacional in June 2019. .
“The show is over, don’t mess around (disturbing). Whoever saw me saw me, there is nothing left”he said at the INBA event, in a clear analogy of his life with his work and which eventually became his epitaph.
EFE extension
