Carlos Ballesteros

CARLOS BALLESTEROS (Zaragoza, 1935 - Madrid, 2011).
"Bicycle", 1990.
Acrylic on cardboard paper.
Signed and dated in the lower right corner.
Measurements: 50 x 65 cm.

Carlos Ballesteros was an actor and theater director, although one of his most notorious hobbies was painting. His first contacts with the world of acting date back to his time as a student of Philosophy and Letters and Architecture, when he collaborated as an amateur in the Teatro Español Universitario. During this period he participated in the staging of Six Characters in Search of an Author, by Luigi Pirandello and Life is a Dream, by Calderón de la Barca. After leaving his studies, he made his professional debut on the stage with The Orestiada and, at the Teatro Español, he appeared in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar and Molière's The Miser. Since the seventies he has also dedicated himself to theatrical direction. At that time he directed the Grupo Teatral Archivo, at the Centro de Preparación de Actores, with which he staged several plays. He made his film debut in 1962 under the orders of José María Forqué in Accidente 703. His later career included Ensayo general para la muerte (1963), by Julio Coll; Olvida los tambores (1975), by Rafael Gil and El lobo negro (1981), by Rafael Romero Marchent. He was also the first actor to play the detective Pepe Carvalho, from Vázquez Montalbán's novels, in Bigas Luna's Tatuaje (1978). He has been present on television since the early days of the medium in Spain and during the sixties and seventies he appeared in numerous TVE programs such as Historias para no dormir (1966), Hora once: Noches blancas (1970), Visto para sentencia (1971), Novela or Estudio 1. In his last professional stage, one of the roles that brought him the most popularity was that of Nicolás, Emilio Aragón's father-in-law in the first season of the successful series Médico de familia (1995-1996). Retired from the stage in 2000, he reappeared on television in 2007, playing a role in Quart. As a playwright and writer, in 1995 he published his first novel, Chúpate esa, Teresa, narrating the life of a modern vampire, and in 2007 another book of the same humorous style, Para cuando se cansa de leer a James Joyce. He also did a theatrical adaptation of Dracula. In September 2008 he premiered and directed, at the Teatro Español in Madrid, his play Esperando al señor S, and that same year he served as President of the Jury in the first edition of the Altea Literature Prize for novels. He was also an exceptional draftsman, and very fond of painting, inclinations that remained from his student days. Since September 2010 he directed the Escuela Municipal de Teatro Clásico de Navalcarnero, the town where he lived until his death, which occurred in the Hospital de Móstoles due to liver cancer that was diagnosed only a month and a half before. His body was donated to science, as he had wished to his friends some time ago.