Pedro Infante

From Guamuchil to Peerless

Pedro Infante Cruz was born on November 18, 1917 in Mazatlan, Sinaloa, and died on April 15, 1957 in Merida, Yucatan, aged 39. He was the third of fifteen children, of whom nine survived, and his father played double bass; the family moved to Guamuchil in early 1919. He formed a band, La Rabia, as a teenager, joined the Orquesta Estrella de Culiacan in 1937 for about 18 months and worked on XEB radio in Mexico City from 1938. His nicknames include El Idolo de Guamuchil, El Idolo de Mexico, El Inmortal and El Rey de las Rancheras. He made his film debut as an extra in En un burro tres baturros in 1939 and had his first lead in La feria de las flores (1943).

On records he made two unsuccessful sides for RCA Victor Mexicana in 1942 and then recorded mostly for Peerless; English Wikipedia gives his first Peerless recording as "El soldado raso" on November 19, 1943, while a mariachimusic.com article gives a session on October 29, 1943. Early Peerless sessions used Mariachi Tapatio Marmolejo and Mariachi Tapatio de Juan Guitron; from June 8, 1950 Mariachi Vargas de Tecalitlan was his house group and Ruben Fuentes his exclusive arranger. Because Vargas had an exclusive RCA Victor contract, Peerless credits used the names Mariachi Guadalajara or Mariachi Los Mamertos. Infante recorded 44 of Fuentes's more than 300 songs. His final studio session, with Vargas, was in December 1956. Wikipedia counts over 350 songs recorded; the Peerless producer Sergio Solis Castellanos put it at more than 300 between 1942 and 1957.

In film, Nosotros los pobres and Ustedes los ricos (1948) and Pepe el Toro (1952) made a trilogy, Sobre las olas (1950) cast him as Juventino Rosas, and La vida no vale nada (1954) won him an Ariel for Best Actor in 1956. He won the Silver Bear for Best Actor, posthumously, at Berlin in 1957 for Tizoc. About 300,000 attended his funeral per Wikipedia. His songs include "Amorcito corazon", "Te quiero asi", "Corazon" and "Dicen que soy mujeriego"; "Besame mucho" was his only English-language recording. Cuando sale la luna (1952) was ranked 56th in a 2024 list of the 600 greatest Latin albums. He has a Walk of Fame star, entered the International Latin Music Hall of Fame on April 2, 2001, had a Google Doodle for his 2017 centenary and appears in Coco; the soprano Olivia Gorra said he sang as if saying something in your ear, and the tenor Ramon Vargas called him a poet of the song.