It was Luis "El Mortales," the one who risked his life in every scene, on horseback, on foot, in the air. He doubled "Zorro" in the moments of...

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By Eduardo de Vicente

August 15, 2022

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By José Ángel Pérez

His name was Luis Sánchez del Río y Llamazares and although he was born in León, he spent his best years as a film professional in Almeria, his second homeland, a great specialist in the films that were shot here. He was a tough guy who from so much acting was creating and believing his own character. He always lived on the edge, defying danger, In the early hours of December 17, 1983, while he was having fun at the Alcalá 20 nightclub in Madrid, a fire took him forever along with 81 other people.

The “El Mortales” was able to save himself, but when he reached the exit he really risked it and returned to rescue young lives that were burning in a sea of flames, losing his own. He was a prodigy of nature, an athlete with a cat's vocation.

As a child he climbed church towers to catch storks' nests and jumped through trees, from branch to branch, hanging only from one hand. Small, thin, fibrous, it flew like a bird and crawled on the ground like a reptile.

One of his first jobs came when he was not yet 18 years old. During the filming of the film "Tarde de toros" (1956) he had to double a young man who in his attempt to sneak into the Las Ventas bullring ended up falling into the void.   

Throughout his life he never came to recognize fear or rule out a role, no matter how dangerous it was. He threw himself with a horse from the quarries of Villalba, in Madrid, in a plummet of more than forty meters into a lake.  

In the sixties he arrived in Almeria attracted by the continuous shooting of films and for a decade he became the soul of the specialists. 

He was the leader of a group that included important names such as Francisco Barrilado, Paco Gómez Castro, Rafael Gómez, the Cerdán brothers, José Luis Telo and Plácido Martín, among others.

He never went unnoticed. He was a man who attracted attention, as if he were acting continuously. He had an American convertible with which he walked through the center of Almeria as if he were the brightest star in Hollywood. 

It was Luis 'El Mortales', the one who risked his skin in each scene, on horseback, on foot, in the air. He doubled Zorro in moments of danger, the one who threw himself from moving cars and bounced off the ground as if his body were a piece of rubber. 

He liked to boast of his bravery, his agility, but without ever humiliating a colleague. He took care of his appearance, aware of the importance of the image for a film character. One day when he lost a tooth in a fall, he covered the hole himself with a piece of wood that was implanted in the hollow of his mouth so that the dent would not be seen until the dentist replaced the piece.

It would have been a sign of weakness to go through life dented. He frequented discotheques. He used to spend the night at 'Play Boy', which was on the ground floor of the Gran Hotel, and at Baroque, on the road to Aguadulce. 

If he had to dance, he became the center of attention of the place, if he had to drink he was the last to refuse a drink, but always without showing the others his state of drunkenness. To hide it, he would do a handstand on the hood of the car without his pulse trembling or hook himself on the mast of a lamppost and hang himself at a right angle as if his body were a flag. 

He was 'El Mortales', one sixty-five in height, sixty-four kilos in weight, pure fiber, the best specialist who passed through Almeria, a friend of his friends, generous, intelligent,

In the early hours of December 17, 1983, while he was enjoying with some friends at the Alcalá 20 nightclub in Madrid, a fire took him away forever. Fate offered him the opportunity to move on, he could have escaped when he reached the exit and got to safety, but 'El Mortales' really risked trying to rescue lives in a sea of flames.

[submitted by Michael Ferguson]