RIP Carlos Ballesteros

Spanish actor and theater director Carlos Ballesteros has died. Carlos Ballesteros died Sunday, September 4, 2011, in a hospital in Móstoles, Madrid, Spain at 75 years of age, month and a half after being diagnosed with cancer.

Ballesteros was born on December 31, 1935 in Zaragoza, Aragon Spain. He studied philosophy and literature in college, but soon found his passion for the stage which led him to abandon his studies and join the Spanish University Theatre, where he participated in productions such as "Six Characters in Search of an Author" of Pirandelo and "Life is a Dream" by Calderon de la Barca. From 1957 until the beginning of the last decade he appeared in over a hundred plays by national and international authors such as Calderón, Zorrilla, Buero Vallejo, Lope de Vega, Cervantes, Valle-Inclan, Shakespeare, Ibsen, Wilde, Strinberg, Molière, Steinbeck, Poe and Aeschylus, among others.

In 1962 the actor began his film career at the hands of José María Forqué, in "Accidente 703". He followed up with twenty more films, among them "Tatuaje" by Bigas Luna, "La espada Negra" by Francisco Rovira Beleta, "Nunca en horas de clase" José Antonio de la Loma and "Locas vacaciones" by Hubert Frank . On the small screen he took part in the legendary "Studio 1" and "Stories to Keep You Awake" TV series and most recently guested in the popular series "Médico de familia" in which he played Nicholas, father of Emilio Aragón.

In 2000 he retired after participating in "La malquerida" by Jacinto Benavente. Besides its importance as an actor, Ballesteros was a cartoonist in the magazines Don Jose, La codorniz, and Primer planc. His humor was subject to literary forays, in 2007 he published the novel Para cuando se canse de leer a James Joyce, and also wrote several plays which were adapted for the stage such as "Dracula". Last year, the multifaceted artist assumed the leadership of the Municipal School of Classical Theatre of Madrid suburb of Navan, where he lived for some time.

Ballesteros appeared in two Euro-westerns: "The Black Wolf" and "Revenge of the Black Wolf" (both 1980).