Pedro Infante

Background

José Pedro Infante Cruz was born on November 18, 1917, in Mazatlán, Sinaloa, Mexico. He was one of the biggest actors and singers of the Golden Age in Mexican cinema. As a teenager, Cruz showed interest in music and went as far as making a guitar in a carpentry shop. In 1938, at 21, he auditioned at the radio station X.E.B. for a position with Julián Morán on the piano. Ernesto Belloc, the artistic director at the time, thought he was too nervous during the audition and told him to stay as a carpenter. The following week they gave him a second chance, this time Cruz got hired to sing three times a week on air.

Cruz’s first appearance in a movie was in “En un Burro Tres Baturros,” “Three Peasants on a Donkey.” His leading roles career began in 1943 with “La Feria de Las Flores,” “The Flower Fare.” In the same year, a friend of Cruz’s wife, Carmen Barajas, offered to introduce them to Jorge Negrete, a very well-known artist. Barajas was the aunt of the child actress Angélica María who knew people in the business so it didn’t come as a surprise when she succeeded in convincing Negrete to recommend Cruz to producer Ismael Rodríguez and others. As a result, Cruz got invited to star in several pictures, including “Vuelve el Ametralladora,” or “The Machine Gun Returns.”

Cruz had a passion for aviation. He logged more than 2,000 hours of flight time under the pseudonym Captain Cruz, but on April 15, 1957, he made his last flight. Cruz was co-piloting a consolidated B-24D that crashed five minutes after taking off en route to Mexico City. Cruz was buried in the Pateón Jardín Cemetery amid 300,000 fans who attended the funeral after a tribute at the Teatro Jorge Negrete.