Héctor Alterio died this Saturday at the age of 96 in Spain, where he lived for more than half a century. He settled across the sea when his name was on a Triple A blacklist, although he had come to this country for a different reason: the presentation of one of the great films in which he was the protagonist. Entire decades passed and he never returned to Buenos Aires to live there.
Alterio had arrived San Sebastian International Festival present The truce, The film by Sergio Renán was released in 1974 and was nominated for the Oscars.
He was a well-known actor in Argentina who also appeared in that year Rebel Patagonia (by Héctor Olivera) and Quebracho (Ricardo Wullicher). In Spain, however, he was just another actor. Actually, The ceasefire He was not part of the official selection (in which he appeared). Painted mouthsby Leopoldo Torre Nilsson, awarded the Special Jury Prize and the Silver Shell), but also in the “New Creators” category.
The days passed September 1974. María Estela Martínez de Perón already headed the Argentine presidency. Isabelita, as she is popularly known, took office on July 1 after the death of Juan Domingo Perón. The shadow of Jose Lopez Rega It emerged from the Ministry of Social Affairs, although its powers extended beyond these functions.
He headed the Argentine Anti-Communist Alliance, the parastatal organization that sowed terror and carried out “ideological adjustment.” The pursuit of Triple A He forced Juan Carlos Gené, Isabel Sarli, Marilina Ross, Héctor Olivera and Luis Brandoni into exile. And Alterio.
His name appeared in a statement from the López Reguista band when he was forecast to be temporarily in San Sebastián.
“I decided to stay in Spain when they told me by telephone, that in Buenos Aires a statement was released by Triple A in which they sentenced me to death,” Alterio recalled to the Spanish newspaper The country a decade later.
His family remained in Buenos Aires and hastened the reunification: Modesta Ángela Bacaicoa Destéfano, his wife; and their children Eduardo (4 years old) and Malena (almost six months old).
“My father wasn’t someone who was very involved in politics, so I feel like this was more of a coup d’etat to pick someone with a lot of media coverage to establish a series of things that came later…” Eduardo reflected in an interview with the Spanish newspaper a few years ago The world.
“Exile became my prison and also my salvation,” said Héctor. Months of reconstruction began.
He settled in a guesthouse in Madrid and began knocking on doors from there. Spanish actor Juan Diego shook his hand. Even though they barely knew each other, he showed up one day with a suitcase. “Here I bring you the cuts you have been asking forhe told him. Alterio was disoriented. He thought they were newspaper clippings to help him get a sense of the surroundings. In reality, they were banknotes.
“It meant a complete change, I adapted because I had no other option, it was the only way to survive, I had no alternative,” he summed up those times.
This resulted in his great artistic opportunity Raising crows… (1976), by Carlos Saura. He traveled to Argentina for the first time to film Shot into the air (1980). Numerous other returns followed, all temporary, although there was at least one moment when he considered doing so permanently: after the end of the military dictatorship.
“Hey, Héctor, think that maybe we can go back. The change of government has affected the entire Argentine colony.”his wife from Madrid told him on the other end of the phone in a phone conversation they had while he was filming in 1984 Camila (by María Luisa Bemberg) and The official story (by Luis Puenzo), Two more films were nominated for the Oscars in Buenos Aires.
However, their children, a teenager Eduardo and a girl Malena, were already half Spanish. There were even changes in Héctor’s behavior: his voice no longer sounded the same.
The mix of Argentinean tone and traditional accent was part of his adaptation, “out of necessity and with complete pleasure.”
That’s what he remembered a few months ago when he got promoted A little story, the piece with which he described his life between Argentina and Spain, written in four hands with Ángela Bacaicoa, his wife since 1969.
It was his farewell to the stage, after a career that despite everything made him an Argentine cultural icon.
Héctor Alterio had lived in Spain since September 1974. Photo EFE, file
Héctor Alterio and his partner Ángela Bacaicoa. Photo EFE/ Daniel González
Héctor Alterio on one of his returns to Argentina in 1983. 
