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Cementerio de La Plata, Calle 131, Altos de San Lorenzo, B1901 La Plata, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Juan Manuel Puig Delledonne (December 28, 1932 – July 22, 1990) was an
Argentine author. Among his best-known novels are La traición de Rita
Hayworth (Betrayed by Rita Hayworth, 1968), Boquitas pintadas
(Heartbreak Tango, 1969), and El beso de la mujer araña (Kiss When Yul Brynner was in Paris making the film, Once More With Feeling, Puig was working as an assistant on the set in 1959. The two men had a brief sexual affair, and Puig bragged about Brynner’s generous endowment.
of the Spider Woman, 1976) which was adapted into the film released in
1985, directed by the Argentine-Brazilian director Héctor Babenco; and a
Broadway musical in 1993. Puig spent a lifetime looking for a partner, with no success. His romantic life was a series of one night stands or relationships that lasted a few weeks or months, at the most. When
Yul Brynner was in Paris making the film, Once More With Feeling, Puig was working as an assistant on the set in 1959. The two men had a brief sexual affair, and Puig bragged about Brynner’s generous endowment. Puig also has a sexual relationship with British stage and screen actor
Stanley Baker.
Puig was born in General Villegas, Buenos Aires Province. Since there was
no high school in General Villegas, his parents sent him to Buenos Aires in
1946. Puig then attended Colegio Ward in Villa Sarmiento (Morón County). This
is when he began to read systematically, beginning with a collection of texts
by Nobel Prize winners. A classmate named Horacio, with whom Puig lived and
paid rent to during his first stay in Buenos Aires introduced him to readings
from the school of Psychoanalysis. The first novel that he read was The
Pastoral Symphony by André
Gide; he also read Hesse,
Huxley, Sartre, and
Mann.
Horacio also introduced Puig to European cinema. After seeing Quai des
Orfèvres (1947), he decided that he wanted to be a film director.[1]
In order to do so he learned Italian, French, and German, which were
considered "the new languages of cinema". He was advised to study engineering
in order to specialize in Sound-on-film but did not consider this to be the
right choice. In 1950, he enrolled in the University of Buenos Aires Faculty
of Architecture but only took classes for six months. In 1951, Puig switched
to the School of Philosophy. Despite hard work, he struggled with subjects
such as Latin. When he graduated, he was already working in film as a film
archivist and editor in the city of Buenos Aires and later, in Italy after
winning a scholarship from the Italian Institute of Buenos Aires. However, the
world of Hollywood and the stars that had captivated him during his childhood
now disappointed him, except for Marilyn Monroe and Gloria Swanson.
Photo by
Robert Giard, Rights Notice: Copyright Jonathan G. Silin (jsilin@optonline.net)
A note in the magazine Radiolandia about the upcoming premiere of the film
Deshonra prompted Puig to try and meet its director Daniel Tinayre, whose
comedy La vendedora de fantasías he admired. Since the director denied
him access to the set, he spoke to the actress Fanny Navarro, who played the
main role, without Tinayre's permission. He felt no sympathy for her since she
supported Juan Domingo Perón, who had prohibited the importation of American
films into Argentina. Navarro sent him to another actress of the cast,
Herminia Franco, who got him in. Shortly after, he began to work in Alex
laboratories.
In 1953, Puig did his obligatory military service in the area of
Aeronautics, working as a translator.
In the 1960s, Manuel Puig moved back to Buenos Aires, where he penned his
first major novel, La traición de Rita Hayworth. Because he had leftist
political tendencies and also foresaw a rightist wave in Argentina, Puig moved
to Mexico in 1973, where he wrote his later works (including El beso de la
mujer araña).
Much of Puig's work can be seen as pop art. Perhaps due to his work in film
and television, Puig managed to create a writing style that incorporated
elements of these mediums, such as montage and the use of multiple points of
view. He also made much use of popular culture (for example, soap opera) in
his works. In Latin American literary histories, he is presented as a writer
who belongs to the Postboom and Post-modernist schools.
Puig lived in exile throughout most of his life. In 1989, Puig moved from
Mexico City to Cuernavaca, Mexico, where he died in 1990. In the previous
months, he had stopped smoking by his doctor’s orders and took daily walks,
however he did not feel well in the altitude of Mexico. He also made sure to
receive his care in a clinic near his house so he would not be far away from
his mother, but for economic reasons and availability of contacts, he had
access to higher quality medical attention. In the official biography,
Manuel Puig and the Spider Woman: His Life and Fiction, his close friend
Suzanne Jill Levine writes that Puig had been in pain for a few days prior to
being admitted to a hospital, where he was told that what needed to be done.
On Saturday July 21, 1990, he was checked into Las Palmas Surgical Center
for risk of peritonitis. An emergency procedure was performed on his inflamed
gallbladder, which was removed. After the surgery, while Puig was recovering,
he began to have respiratory problems, his lungs had filled with fluid, and
was becoming delirious. The medical team was unable to help Puig and they had
to secure him to the bed. He died from acute myocardial infarction (heart
attack) at 4:55 a.m. on July 22, 1990.[2]
His death leaked quickly through the media. Although he had a background of
cardiac issues, the first public assumption was that he had died from
AIDS. It was soon discovered that Manuel Puig was not a carrier of
HIV. Nevertheless,
the certainty of this fact had already been judged by the public eye several
times.
Only six people attended his funeral service, including his mother, his
friends Javier Labrada and Agustín Garcia Gil, his colleague Tununa Mercado
who found himself there for the casual reason of having to present himself in
Xalapa city in Veracruz.
When Jorge Abelardo Ramos, the Argentine ambassador of Mexico was asked to
speak to the media about the death of Manuel Puig, he responded by saying that
he was not aware of the death of an Argentine with that name. Regardless, they
had his body sent to the Federal District of Mexico for his funeral rites with
the Writer’s Society, and the ambassador arrived and gave a speech.
The remains of Manuel Puig were sent to Argentina in the following days,
where they were buried in the Puig family tomb, in the cemetery of La Plata.
The 2004 film Vereda Tropical, directed by Javier Torres, depicts the
period when Puig lived in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The writer's role is played
by the actor Fabio Aste.
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- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manuel_Puig