José Luis López Vázquez de la Torre, March 11, 1922 – Nov. 2, 2009, popular Spanish actor who often worked with director Antonio Mercero , has died. He was 87.
Vázquez and Mercero , together gained considerable fame with the 1972 Emmy award winning short horror “La Cabina” or, in English, “The Telephone Box.” The 35-minute film was co-written by Mercerno and Jose Luis Garci and Vazquez played the leading role as a man that becomes trapped in a telephone booth. Onlookers seem unable to help him. A truck from the telephone company arrives, loads the booth with its trapped occupant onto a truck, and takes it away. When the truck arrives at its destination, the horrified man finds that he has been taken into a large room filled with phone booths, all containing a dead person. The final scenes show the phone company delivering a freshly cleaned and empty phone booth back to the street to await another victim.
“La Cabina” earned Vázquez a Fotogramas de Plata Award for Best TV Performer, and a Premio ACE Award for Best TV Actor. The short also won an International Emmy for Fiction and a Premio ACE for Best TV Scenic Program.
José Luis López Vázquez had a prolific film career starring in more than 200 movies and earning a total of twenty separate awards. His body of work began at the age of 17 and lasted through 2006 in his last production with director Mercero, the movie called “¿Y tú quién eres?”
Alex de la Iglesia, the President de la Academia de Cine stated, "Se va uno de los actores más grandes, una de las patas de la mesa del gran cine español junto con Fernando Fernán Gómez y Pepe Isbert." The quote meaning Vázquez was one the biggest actors and considered a foundation of Spanish film right along with greats such as Fernando Fernán Gómez and Pepe Isbert.
