Before naming any of the hundreds of films in which he participated in Mexico and Hollywood, no one escapes the memory of the athletic body of jorge riverophysique achieved thanks to water polo, swimming and bodybuilding that he practiced in his youth.
From the mid-1960s to the early nineties, Jorge Rivero was one of the leaders on the big and small screens: the invisible killer Marking his feature film debut (where he played a masked wrestler and never showed his face), the Mexican actor soon became a sex symbol and box office star thanks to prolific domestic film output and the rise of new directors. Montezuma’s treasure, Pedro Paramo, Red Hot, midnight women, the naked hour, beyond exorcism, Beatriz, The life of our Lord Jesus Christ and dozens more filled the billboard. The plataforma Mubi has a diverse compilation of his extensive career.
And it is that if it were not for these means or for some occasional sighting, Rivero could live in oblivion. For more than three decades he has lived in California, away from the spotlight and dedicated to a new life, real estate, but every time he reappears, the opportunity cannot be missed to evoke that time in which he shared with other stars: Susana Dosamantes, Meche Carreño, Andrés García, Isela Vega. This is what happened in a recent interview obtained by the journalist Ramón Avilés.
“I already stopped working, I made 165 films, one day what I did was ‘up to here'”, says the actor almost at the beginning of the conversation. Later, he repeats his feeling that he no longer wants to go back to work, “I prefer to do what I’m doing, nothing”with which he rules out any intention, at least on his part, to join this trend of other stars to tell his life in a bioseries, “if someone does it, fine; if not, they die there.”
The jump to Hollywood
Shortly before the beginning of the 1970s, Rivero’s fame was completely focused on his physique. Miguel Zacarías, one of the last directors of the Golden Age of Mexican cinema, can be attributed to that typecasting, when he presented him as ‘Biblical Adam’ in The sin of Adam and Evea film that despite being riddled with errors turns Jorge into an instant erotic myth, due to the daring nude scenes that he and his co-star, the American Candy Cave, did.
According to some, this role attracted Hollywood, but the same actor tries to deny it and attribute it more to his athletic skills, as he would have demonstrated in a rodeo where he was discovered by the American director Howard Hawks. “Do you speak English?” He told him and the Mexican answered yes, knowing that it was a lie, he says.
Hawks would be in charge of taking it to Los Angeles to test with John WayneThe Duke, recognized for his numerous roles in films western and one of the symbols of the rude and masculine in American cinema. Working alongside him would guarantee him greater popularity and a new audience. “(The director) gave me a teacher to study my lines because I didn’t speak English; then I had to do the film test and John Wayne came to do the test with me, it was the first time I saw him physically, personally. He He was the one who told me when I finished the test ‘you got the part’ and that’s where it all started”.
His talent led him to work in Hollywood, where he starred in big movies like Wolf Rivernext to Wayne and Soldier Blue; The last hard man (next to charlton heston) Day of the assassinand subsequently appeared in Italian and Spanish productions.
The longing for Mexican cinema and production
The last time Rivero was on the big screen was in 2014 in the Mexican film The crime of the Cácaro Gumaro, a parody of various mexican films both modern and old in which he made a cameo alongside other stars such as Carmen Salinas, Freddy Ortega, Germán Ortega, Jorge Rivero, Xavier López Chabelo and Víctor Trujillo.
“Mexican cinema has practically died”, says the actor in the interview with Avilés. “It no longer exists, now it’s the narcos, now the narcos make Mexican drug movies, now there’s nothing to do,” laments the former star of file movies.
In his words, for him to return to a Mexican production, be it a movie or a series, the story must tell about Mexico or about someone he admires. Could it be Andres Garcia? Rivero discards it, although he does express his desire to meet with him at his house in Acapulco.
Andrés García, Rivero’s contemporary, was considered Jorge’s rival for years, but he assures that there was never such enmity. “We were always good friends, I was never envious nor was he, on the contrary, we worked together and we both supported each other, a good friendship, and he speaks well of me, I speak well of him. When I speak to him, he likes it , we communicated, hopefully I have time to go see him”.
