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“And if I live a hundred years, I will think of you for a hundred years.” In the streets of Mérida, Yucatán, they still think of Pedro Infante: there is a golden bust and a sign that remembers the accident on April 15, 1957, when the plane carrying the legendary 39-year-old musician fell in the middle of the patio of a house. in which a woman and her son were washing clothes.
“In this place the ‘Idol of Mexico’ Pedro Infante Cruz and Captain Víctor M. Vidal, Marciano Bautista, Ruth Rosell Chan and the child Baltazar Martín Cruz tragically lost their lives on April 15, 1957. This plaque is placed in his memory,” says the sign dated September 1993.
Over the years, there have been other aspects on that street that commemorate the accident, such as murals by Pedro Infante that say: “I swear to you that I didn’t do it” or “If you don’t love me, no way.”
The site is located on streets 54 south and 87 in Mérida, on the corner there is a grocery store called La Socorrito.
Very close is the ‘Pedro Infante’ park where a statue of the actor from the Golden Age of Mexican cinema was placed, along with photographs and phrases like “Oh, trompudas, if I die, who will kiss them?” or “Dear heart, I am tempted by a kiss.”
What was the plane accident in which Pedro Infante died like?
The actor and singer had a fearless personality, for example, in the film ATM (1951) he refused to use doubles for stunts and did his own stunts on his Harley Davidson motorcycle.
Infante was also an aviator pilot and in his free time he went flying. Before the accident in which he died, in the 1940s he had two other aerial incidents.
In 1947 he was the first and was unharmed; two years later, due to a lack of fuel in an aircraft, it was his second plane attack in which he had serious injuries.
According to IMDb, the musician had a skull fracture and had a metal plate placed in his head: “He was left with a large scar on the top of his head, which left him bald, so he bought a very expensive toupee, made to measure and of great quality.”
The Directorate of Civil Aeronautics of the Ministry of Communications and Public Works said at that time that the accident occurred shortly after 7:45 in the morning, when the Consolidated Vultee B.24J plane with registration XA-KUN took off from the International Airport of Merida on its flight number 904 and fell after a short distance.
The aircraft was flying to Mexico City and was crewed by pilot Víctor Vidal and co-pilot Pedro Infante, as well as mechanic Marciano Bautista.
At that time, 58th and 95th streets in the city of Mérida, but the patio of a house fell, where the damage also claimed the lives of a woman and her son after the gasoline tanks caught fire.
In the documentary The Dudosa muerte de Pedro Infante, researcher Ana Luisa Cid Fernández says that the actor’s body could not be fully recognized and the coffin was kept closed, due to which there were many rumors that he had not died.
Who was Pedro Infante?
José Pedro Infante Cruz was born on November 18, 1917 in Mazatlán, Sinaloa, he was the son of the musician Delfino Infante García and María del Refugio Cruz Aranda, who was dedicated to sewing. He was married to Irma Dorantes, Lupita Torrentera and María Luisa León.
According to Google Arts & Culture, Pedro played the violin and guitar since he was a child, he was also fond of carpentry and debuted as a musician at the age of 16, with a group in Sinaloa called La Rabia, then he gained more fame on the radio station XEB in 1938. : “his wife María Luisa León convinces him to emigrate to Mexico City and become a singer.”
As an actor, Infante began in El organillero (1939) and added 63 credits in emblematic films of the Golden Age, such as Tizoc (1957), When the brave cry (1947) and Coyotes en la Huasteca (1948).
“Ismael Rodríguez modeled his characters on Infante’s character. Like the musician Juventino Rosas in On the Waves (1950), far from the historical truth but close to the personality of the actor,” adds Google Arts & Culture.
‘El Inmortal’ won two Ariel Awards for La vida no vale nada and Tizoc, for which he received the Silver Bear award for best actor in Berlin as a posthumous award.
