Jorge Negrete

Jorge Alberto Negrete Moreno (Guanajuato, November 30, 1911-Los Angeles, California, December 5, 1953), known as El Charro Cantor, was a Mexican actor and singer. He founded the Union of Workers of the Cinematographic Production of the Mexican Republic and reorganized, together with a select group of actors, the National Association of Actors (ANDA).

Biography and career

Jorge Alberto Negrete Moreno was born on November 30, 1911 in Guanajuato, Mexico, one of the five children of David Negrete Fernández and Emilia Moreno Anaya.

He studied at the Alexander von Humboldt German School in Mexico City, where he learned German, English, French, Italian, Swedish and the basic principles of Nahuatl. Later he entered the Heroic Military College, graduating as a lieutenant in the Cavalry and Administration (Intendance) of the Mexican Army with high qualifications.

Negrete in an advertising photograph, c.1940s.

In 1952 he starred in Los tres alegres compadres; later he would star with fellow singer and actor Pedro Infante in Two Types of Care, directed by Ismael Rodríguez, his latest film. That year she also filmed: Tal para cual, with Luis Aguilar, María Elena Marqués and the singer Rosa de Castilla.

In Argentina he was received by a crowd. At the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires he sang, dressed as a gaucho, Adiós, Pampa mía , by Mariano Mores, to a full house. From there he traveled to Chile with unprecedented success in that country.

His liberal ideology provoked suspicion on the part of the Francoist government in Spain.

Several singers have been influenced and have expressed their admiration for Jorge Negrete.

Jorge Negrete founded the Union of Film Production Workers of the Mexican Republic and joined the, then small, National Association of Actors of Mexico. The conflict of interest that their union struggle generated in the entertainment business in Mexico gave rise to a campaign against him by various producers, a campaign in which those rumors were generated that assured that Jorge Negrete agreed to sing ranchera music by force and almost forced by circumstances, and that in reality he despised the genre, thus as the rumor that he came from an aristocratic family, presenting him as a person of noble birth and that he always enjoyed privileges, thus distancing him from the people. Both unfounded rumors and with the express purpose of distorting his image.

Personal life

He was married twice, the first to Elisa Christy, and the second to María Félix. From his first marriage to Christy he fathered their only daughter, Diana Negrete.

He had romantic relationships with the actresses Gloria Marín and Elsa Aguirre.

Illness and death

Tomb of Negrete as seen in 2015. It is located in the Garden Pantheon in Mexico City. The sculpture of the crucifix that is observed was entangled in 2021 after being vandalized, and later it was removed from the tomb.

During his stay in the city of Los Angeles, Negrete attended a fight by the Mexican boxer Raúl Macías, when one of the varicose veins in his esophagus and stomach burst with vomiting of blood (hematemesis) and with the pressure of the liver producing a hemorrhage. Upon his early transfer to Lebanon Cedars Hospital, he remained in a coma for several days. On December 5, 1953, Negrete died at the age of 42 in the city of Los Angeles, California, due to a chronic disease caused by hepatitis C.

National mourning

The days before his death, the newscasts were broadcast in the cinema where they gave information about his condition. The day of his death was considered national mourning. On the afternoon of December 5, 1953, in all the cinemas of Mexico, the notice of the death of Jorge Negrete appeared, and five minutes of silence were observed in all movie theaters in the country, in accordance with an order given by the politician and film leader Pedro Téllez Vargas.

By presidential decision of Adolfo Ruiz Cortines, the transfer of the remains of Jorge Negrete was made in a Federal Government plane belonging to the Ministry of Agriculture, a day of national mourning was declared, and it was ordered that his body be veiled in the Palace of Fine Arts, and that his coffin be covered with the national flag. About 10,000 people gathered at the Mexico City Airport. A human fence of hundreds of thousands of admirers bordered the path of the Actors Association Theater (today Jorge Negrete Theater), until it led to the Jardín Pantheon, where his body was buried.

Filmography