Paco Martínez Soria, his tragic end: Fernando Esteso was the last person to see him before he died
All the people who live in a town they have felt misplaced the first time they step on a big city. And whenever that odyssey occurs, the same person comes to mind. Paco Martinez Soria, born in Tarazona back in 1902, became the reflection of many in a Postwar Spain who, despite being in the last decade of Francoism, continued to move to the cities in search of a better life.
The actor himself lived that Rural exodus in their own flesh, although long before the beginning of the Civil war: from a municipality in Zaragoza moved to Barcelona, where “Don Paco” first got on a stage, from which he would not get off until his death.
Despite participating in more than 35 movies Throughout his five decades of career, Paco Martínez Soria had two stoppages in his film career: the first, between 1943 and 1951 (when focused exclusively on the theater) and another between 1959 and 1966, year in which it ended, he returned to theaters with one of the most important films of the history of Spanish cinema: ‘The city is not for me’, Directed by Pedro Lazaga.
Martínez Soria y Esteso, teacher and student
After embodying the ‘leg’ Augustin Valverde, success finally came for the actor, who starred until 14 more tapes with his characteristic humor and small-town attitude. Paco Martínez-Soria marked a time in which the Spanish popular comedy it became the favorite genre of a society that, despite being under Franco, was already beginning to change.
One of those actors who started his career under the umbrella of actor of ‘Grandfather Made In Spain’ (1969) was Fernando Esteso. The comedian, who formed a comic duo with Andres Pajares which grew hand in hand with an entire generation, struck up a great relationship with Martínez-Soria, to the point that, as the comedian acknowledged, “Don Paco” considered him as his successor.
Esteso, even on his deathbed
at the beginning of year 1982, Paco Martínez Soria was preparing the play ‘Keep the secret for me, Lucas!‘, the adaptation of the tape ‘¡What a pair of twins!‘, in which the actor himself starred in 1978. On the morning of 26 of February, the service personnel colon hotel, where he was staying, they found the Dead body of the comedian after being alerted by the own co-stars from Turiasonense.
As he told himself Fernando Esteso in an interview for the program To Escampar la Boira, on Aragón TV, the comedian was found at the Bocaccio nightclub just two days before he died: “We were having a drink and He asked me if I could accompany him to his house. I asked him if he was sick, and he said no. […] I accompanied him to the floor and He told me to wait for him to go to bed and to leave. I stood at the foot of the bed and said good night. Two days later, from that same bed, he fell to the floor and died.”
Fernando Esteso was the last person to see alive one of the most important actors in the history of Spain and who continues to be one of the greatest exponents of national cinema, even four decades after his death.
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