These are times of strong emotions for the teacher Hector Alterio, for his family and for his other family: the one made up of all those who, for so long, have seen him act in films that are part of our history. Last Friday the long-awaited reunion of this actor from more than 150 films and some 50 plays took place at the Astros. Many of his friends and fellow travelers were there at the debut performance of To Buenos Aires. When he magically appeared on stage, the 700 people who filled the room stood up to applaud him. It might not be otherwise. It was, if you will, something close to fair, something closely linked to gratitude.
In this magical week of this winged gentleman, on Tuesday night, at the CCK, the Ministry of Culture of the Nation organized a well-deserved tribute to this gentleman who had won so many battles. It was, as in the Astros, with the room on the ninth floor with a viewpoint towards that city that for so many years he missed so much, where many classmates, colleagues and friends attended. A list, surely incomplete, of which they were part Victor Laplace, Georgina Barbarossa, Ricardo Darin, Eleonora Wexler, Edward White, Gerardo Romano, Alejandra Darin y Pepe Sorianoamong many others who decided not to miss that moment of deserved recognition of an endearing and wonderful figure whose works had that strange virtue of being part of the collective memory of different key moments in the country.
After 6:00 p.m., the scheduled start time, the CCK leadership had some of the fervor of the scaloneta. Like a prolix chorus, this master of words entered shouting “olé, olé, olé”. A few meters from that journey through the central corridor nuanced by hugs and applause, he found himself in the first row with another teacher: Mr. Pepe Soriano. As in a perfect choreography, the entire audience stood up to try to merge into the embrace of two gentlemen with white hair, neat clothes, eyes full of stories that merged into an endless greeting. “It’s like seeing the embrace between San Martín and Belgrano,” she said as Georgina Barbarossa passed one of those who was next to her (who writes this chronicle). Saving historical details, she is right just to remember, for example, the work of both in the rebellious patagonia1974 film that marked an era.
There was another hug that, inevitably, refers to associations linked to two necessary and intelligent films that addressed the darkest period in our history. It was when Alterio, protagonist of The official story, that first Argentine film that won an Oscar Award in 1985; he met Ricardo Darín, the protagonist of Argentina, 1985. Both films make up a kind of necessary and intelligent diptych on the military dictatorship (the same one that led this white-haired, light-eyed gentleman to begin his exile in Spain while presenting at festivals Trucethe first film nominated for an Oscar that was left in the final instance as happened recently to the one that Darín co-starred).
Let’s go back to CCK. Gaston Pauls the office of master of ceremony. Outside the script, he told an anecdote regarding when he was called to work on the film Heart of firefilmed in Uruguay, in which Héctor Alterio, Pepe Soriano and Frederick Luppi. “Those who know this wonderful duo know that Pepe talks and talks and talks, always telling interesting things. They know Federico, too. And I, who was working with Héctor for the first time, met a person who, despite the fact that his films have been nominated five times for the Oscars, he never says so. There I found myself with a great companion, with someone located, quiet and, above all things that is something even greater than the immense actor that he is, with his humility. Thank you very much for that.”
Due to greeting issues, he might not be present Susana Rinaldi, but sent a line. “I am so weak that I cannot personally tell you not to leave without waiting for me,” she wrote him with a certain hint of irony and admiration. He added his testimony, his recognition, Víctor Laplace, a castmate of Goodbye, Robert the first film that was encouraged to address a gay theme in which both worked. As it happens on the job To Buenos Aires, the one he is presenting at the Astros, tango is a constitutive element of this gentleman raised and born in the Chacarita neighborhood. In tune with his musical universe, recognition mutated towards the sound of the bandoneon of the great Rodolfo Mederos. “In human attitudes there are two columns: A and B. In A are the men who have love for what they do. In B, those that are different. There are those who have courage and, in the other, the cowards. There are those who do things with conviction while the others do it out of opportunity, out of opportunism. Héctor Alterio belongs to the letter A. Thank you Héctor”, he said looking into his eyes before playing his bandoneon. Adriana Varela, in his style, was very direct. “It’s a piece of my life, of my history,” and she sang a song by Homero Manzi to the actor’s family.
The Minister of Culture Tristán Bauer complied with formality by presenting this enormously talented gentleman with a plaque of recognition. “Commemorating 40 years of democracy, I want you to know that we owe you a lot, that you are part of our history, of our memory; and that you are always with us, ”he said to a new round of applause.
As is customary for this master of words, in the same way as when he was awarded the Goya Award of Honor in Spain and when he ran into that audience last Friday who did not stop applauding him, he almost fell silent. “I can only say thank you, say things like I don’t deserve it. I insist once more: thank you very much, what else is there following thank you?” He said as he looked at each of the people who applauded him excitedly.
After cardboard he read a letter in which he remembered himself as a boy, in which he thanked his co-workers, the directors who allowed him to get into different characters and his family “who accompany me in this long game. 93 years have passed and the memories are mixed, crowded, distorted. I see a skinny, long-nosed boy riding a bicycle through the Chacarita neighborhood who found a way to make a place for himself in this vast world by making people have fun doing antics. That was how the characters helped me cover up my shyness.”
He recalled his time in the Nuevo Teatro movement and his own conviction that the revolution had to come hand in hand with culture. “My political party was the theater,” he assured before an impressive silence that takes shape when a teacher speaks. And, of course, he remembered the poet León Felipe, the same one who exalts and illuminates today in the theater on his beloved Corrientes Avenue. “Today we are proud to be able to tell the world that mothers, grandmothers, children and grandchildren fought and continue to do so for justice and memory. In our country, so full of contradictions, that axis is the most important milestone that we can show the world. This is how my 93 years passed. I am happy with what I have experienced, ”he said before saying, once once more, thank you amid well-deserved applause for this key person in Argentine culture.
