The great Antonio Mercero dies at 82

Film and television director and screenwriter, he will always be remembered for works such as the series 'Verano azul' and 'Farmacia de Guardia' or the medium-length film 'La Cabin'.

The director and screenwriter Antonio Mercero, author of such popular series as Summer Blue y Pharmacy on call, has died at 82 years of age.

Born in Lasarte (Guipúzcoa), he graduated in Law from the University of Valladolid. In 1959 he joined the IIEC, where he made short films The black sheep, Piss, The dead one y Trotin Trotters, which will serve as practice for the diploma.

In January 2004, the fiction series premiered on Antena 3. Manolito Gafotas, of which he is director.

In 2001 he directed the television film The white room for TVE.

In 2003 he directed Fourth floor and in September 2007 he released his latest film, And whose are you? starring Manuel Alexandre and José Luis López Vázquez and which addresses Alzheimer's, a disease that he has suffered in recent years.

In 1962 he directed the short art lesson and, after the failure of his first feature, he continues directing short films: The ballad of the four horsemen, University of Navarra, A town in trouble y Goodbye to Price.

In 1970 he began to work for television: he directed documentaries and several episodes of the series Chronicles of a townas well as episodes of the series That man in black (1975), blue summer (1981), Office shift (1986), Pharmacy on call (1990) y The white room (2000).

In the world of cinema some of his films are: The little birds Don Juan (1974), La Gioconda is sad, The Bachelor's Night, Art Lesson, Boy Needed, Elegy for a Circus, Blood Stains on a New Car, Dad's War, Tobi, Wait for Me in Heaven, o The hour of the brave.

Awards

In 2003 he directed Fourth floor, a feature film that is a finalist in the Best Film category of the Goya Film Academy Awards.

The Council of the Television Academy honored him in December 2002 with the Lifetime Award, an award that recognizes his merits in his professional career on the small screen. He was also recognized with the Goya of Honor from the Film Academy in 2010. Mercero was also honored by the Ministry of Education and Culture in 1997 with the Gold Medal of Fine Arts.

Su mediometraje The cabin (1972) won ten national and international awards, including the American Emmy in 1973.

The president of the Television Academy, Manuel Campo Vidal, highlighted that "today we say goodbye to the second president of the Television Academy, chosen as the successor of Jesús Hermida. He was not only an extraordinary character on television as director of emblematic series such as Verano Azul or Farmacia de Guardia, but also a very outstanding filmmaker as he demonstrated in The Cabin o wait for me in heaven, describing the legend about a Franco double used in risky situations. For me, above all this, which is a lot, Antonio Mercero was a good man, exceptionally good, as Machado would say. In each of his characters that underlying goodness emerged and was perceived by all of us who had the immense personal and professional fortune of dealing with him.”

“His talent captivated me the day he closed the door to ‘the cabin’ and none of the medicines that were dispensed in his ‘on-call pharmacy’ eradicated my great admiration for him,” said journalist Olga Viza, with whom he also met at the Television Academy.

Ricardo Vaca, who also belonged to the Board of Directors of Mercero, has indicated that "one of the greats of our television is leaving. A very good person with unlimited kindness and an exceptional audiovisual professional who will always be missed by many of us. I shared vacations with him in Santander and I send his family all my love. From The Cabin a Chronicles of a town, Blue Summer o Guard Pharmacy, was one of the avant-garde of television fiction in our country.”