Emilio “El Indio” Fernández died with the desire to go to Cuautla

Emilio “El Indio” Fernández had an overflowing love for the cinema, also for brandy and a backpack that he always carried with him. The Mexican filmmaker, creator of cinematographic jewels such as “Flor Silvestre”, “María Candelaria”, “Bugambilia”, “Río Escondido” and “Maclovia”, frequented the restaurant of the Churubusco studios, where in his last years of life he denied the changes in the industry, he was angry and cursed, but he also hoped to return to make more films; time was no longer enough for him.

Due to the proximity of the "Indian" with the weapons and his strong character, his friends thought that he would surely have liked to die in a shootout, and not in the bed of his house located in Coyoacán, a place where his treasures and memories rest. .

The filmmaker, one of the most prolific in Mexico, died of cardiac arrest on August 6, 1986, that day he planned to go to Cuautla de Morelos to relax and have a good time with Columba Domínguez, who was his partner and adventure partner, but his body, which was recovering from surgery after falling from the stairs of a spa in Acapulco, no longer had strength, he was left dressed as a charro waiting for one last ride.

He also reads: Dolores del Río and the tragic story of "María Candelaria" in Xochimilco

Beyond the work dumbbell between Columba and Emilio, both actors lived their own love story, from which Jacaranda, the couple's only daughter, was born. Adela Fernández, daughter of "El Indio" Fernández, told TV Azteca in an interview that when Columba left his father, he was depressed for several days, singing melodies of pain with "Cuco" Sánchez and José Alfredo Jiménez. THE UNIVERSAL Photo Library.

The farewell in the big house

That morning in August 1986, Emilio Fernández woke up in a good mood and smiling, he wanted to spend a day of relaxation outside of Mexico City.

"I'm going to wake up badass and we're going to Cuautla!" Columba told his wife the night before he died. a recent assault.

At 11:30 a.m. and after bathing and putting on his best charro suit, the filmmaker began to feel bad.

"By Sunday afternoon he had gotten serious, we even had to talk to the doctor to check him out, however it was all a false alarm and his discomfort, for a moment, disappeared," Columba said in an interview with EL UNIVERSAL.

She also reads: María Félix, the place where the "woman without a soul" rests

The actress, star of films such as "Hidden River", "Maclovia" and "Pueblerina", reported that Emilio's vital signs began to weaken, and his temperature dropped considerably, she and the nurse tried to revive him several times but it did not help. much.

Despite being separated from Emilio Fernández, Columba was with the film director until the end, when he suffered a fall that caused fractures in his hand and hip in June 1986. EL UNIVERSAL Photo Library.

"I ordered the nurse to light the fire in the fireplace, hoping that the heat from her bedroom would help raise her temperature, but all to no avail." At the precise moment the doctor arrived, Emilio died. On the table were three bottles of Don Pedro, half empty, and one more of brandy, completely empty.

The house had fallen silent. Only Columba's crying broke the peace of the mansion that 40 years ago "El Indio" had ordered the architect Manuel Parra to build.

Also read: Emilio "El Indio" Fernández went to prison for murder

THE UNIVERSAL Photo Library.

At the back of the enclosure, located on the corner of Zaragoza and Dulce Olivia streets, several objects that he lovingly kept witnessed the tragic moment of eternal goodbye. A photograph in which he appeared with the former president of Mexico, José López Portillo, showed the precise moment in which he was decorated for his brilliant career as a filmmaker.

THE UNIVERSAL Photo Library.

“One of the things she wanted most in the world was his house,” Columba recalled. “We started building it stone by stone in 1945 and six years later we moved. As he grew older he learned to love her."

Chocolates were the candy that he liked the most, stacked boxes of chocolates, bottles of liquor, bottles of mezcal and several packs of cigarettes gave off a certain aroma of old, as they said, the whole house smelled.

Many characters visited the house of "El Indio", including Marilyn Monroe, who is observed by Columba Domínguez. THE UNIVERSAL Photo Library.

The property, built entirely with volcanic stone, was the setting for more than 100 films, on its walls are works by Diego Rivera, Miguel Covarrubias and José Clemente Orozco, in its gardens rest the remains of the architect Manuel Parra and Emilio himself Fernandez.

THE UNIVERSAL Photo Library

"The love of cinema is over, what abounds are the hucksters"

Emilio Fernández wanted an opportunity to "revive" good Mexican cinema, the kind he had made in the forties and fifties. And although the Mexico of that time, the one that yearned for the provincial atmosphere, had already changed, "El Indio" insisted, until the end of his days, that good cinema was no longer being made in Mexico.

"I do know how to make movies, not like the directors of today, who only seek to become millionaires by doing crap that has destroyed the markets," he said.

Emilio Fernández was the one who opened the eyes of the world to see Mexican cinema, he created the photogenic landscapes, trees, magueyes, clouds and Mexican faces. Emilio gave cinema a stamp, a way of its own, a personality.

THE UNIVERSAL Photo Library

He was born in Mineral del Hondo, Coahuila, on March 26, 1904, he was an extra, actor, screenwriter and, above all, director of a very personal film. He ran through the North American dance halls and also through the Hollywood studios, since then the idea came to him "we have to make Mexican cinema".

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He debuted as an actor in 1934 in the film "Corazón bandolero" directed by Rafael J. Sevilla. His last film of this stage as an actor was nine years later in "Flor Silvestre", when he had already directed his first film.

THE UNIVERSAL Photo Library.

As a director, his career spans 36 years, from 1941 to 1977, from "The Island of Passion" to "Erotica". His films have a unique style, distant from the routine cinema of the time; when the national cinema entered a new stage, it was too small for him, and the producers no longer wanted to work with him, claiming that he was very demanding.

THE UNIVERSAL Photo Library.

"Flor Silvestre", "Bugambilia", "Hidden River", "Maclovia", "Salón México", "Pueblerina", "Víctimas del sin" and "La Choca" are considered some of the best of his work.

Emilio Fernández is considered a founder of national cinema, a defender of what he considered "good cinema", his chiaroscuro style he knew how to brilliantly apply in his films with the help of Gabriel Figueroa.

“What they have done with the cinema is criminal, they have no mother!... but we are to blame for allowing so much crap to be filmed. I don't understand how the government supports this kind of shit, ”he once declared.

“Each six-year term new officials are invented, who know about cinema what I know about engineering, just as they want there to be a cinema like the one I made from scratch, without money, or technical resources, or support, or anything at all, just eggs and a lot of love for cinema”, he expressed in his last years of life.

THE UNIVERSAL Photo Library.

He was convinced that it is not money, nor technological advances, what makes good cinema, but the heart and the head, "and this is precisely what current directors lack", he affirmed convinced, because he believed that to make good cinema, like the one that was made in the forties and fifties, required a lot of sensitivity and a lot of courage”.

That last film that he longed for so much was a new version of "María Candelaria", starring Dolores del Río and Pedro Armendáriz in 1943.

For many, his best years had passed, and the Mexico in which his productions triumphed was no longer the same.

THE UNIVERSAL Photo Library.

The press of the time said: "He never accepted this harsh reality, and with unyielding stubbornness he kept turning over the scripts that made him famous along with the other great disappeared, Mr. Mauricio Magdaleno."

The truth is that with the cameraman Gabriel Figueroa, he formed a couple that showed the beautiful Mexican landscapes that aroused the interest of the world.

Prison, suicide and loneliness

In 1978, after a fight in Torreón, he fired a real pistol at a young peasant, like in the movies, and killed him. He became a criminal persecuted and imprisoned by justice.

On August 30 of that year he lost his court battle and was sentenced to four years in prison. Two years later he would be pardoned by a governor in recognition of his artistic work.

EL UNIVERSAL newspaper library.

Jacaranda, the daughter he had with Columba Domínguez, died for “Indio”, an event that was described by some as a suicide, by others as an accident and even, for Columba, as a murder.

On November 21, 1978, Jacaranda, 25, organized a party in her apartment located in the Cuauhtémoc neighborhood, according to witnesses, the young woman fell from the balcony located on the third floor and died instantly.

In what was her room, inside the house in Coyoacán, one of the walls reads: "Dad, I love you very much."

Also read: The death of Columba's daughter and "El Indio"

Added to the sorrow for the loss of his daughter, the great sadness of the creator was not having been able to return to the cinema.

The critics of the time pointed out that "El Indio" lived his last years clinging to his glory days, without wanting to accept that everything had changed, society had changed. The notes about how he secluded himself in his magisterial house were frequent, like the one that was published in EL UNIVERSAL in 1986:

“That is why his house is, (it was already 30 years ago) a museum impregnated with dust and memories, with loneliness impossible for any common mortal to bear. He managed to arrive at his cloister in a state of relaxing intoxication, capable of making him forget so many memories and, above all, so much daily frustration”.

Columba fires "El Indio". THE UNIVERSAL Photo Library.

On his last trip to the United States, where he received a tribute in a town in Nevada, he was given a bull terrier dog in Los Angeles that faithfully accompanied him until the end of his days.

In his last years he attended tributes with a cowboy hat, cowboy boots and a red bandana around his neck, to attack the cinematographic authorities of his country and against the directors of a new cinema that he did not like.

Months before his death, in the resort of Acapulco, when he was writing the script for a new movie, he tripped on some stairs and suffered a fall, breaking his hip and clavicle. He was subjected to successive and painful surgeries, he had a slow agony that culminated in August 1986, when he wanted to escape to Cuautla but could no longer.

This is how they honored Emilio Fernández. EL UNIVERSAL newspaper library.

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