Composer
Ferrusquilla was born on October 2, 1919 in Choix, Mexican state of Sinaloa. When his father is widowed, they move to El Guayabo, on the banks of the Fuerte River. Some time later they go to live in Los Mochis, where one of their teachers proposes to move to Mazatlan, in order to continue their studies. In Mazatlan he made many friends, and it was precisely a group of them who in 1937 put him on a train bound for Mexico City, because he wanted to be a doctor. However fate had other plans.
In 1938 he entered to work in the XEQ. At first he did errands, then he worked as an announcer and later as an actor and in the dubbing of films. Ferrusquilla acted in around 80 films. He worked with legends of Mexican national cinema, such as Carmen Montejo, Sara Garcia, Maria Felix, Jorge Negrete and many more. However, he also shared the screen with personalities such as Richard Burton, Anthony Quinn, Boris Karloff, John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, Dean Martin, Robert Mitchum, Brigitte Bardot and Jeanne Moreau.
As a composer his masterpiece was “Echame a la culpa”, song that launched him to fame and was so popular in Spain that a film of the same name was filmed, counting on the performances of Lola Flores and Miguel Aceves Mejía. However, there have been many songs that emerged from the inspiration of Ferrusquilla.
In 1976, together with Lola Beltrán and Tito Guízar, he received the Peace Medal of the United Nations (UN) in New York. The Autonomous University of Sinaloa awarded him the title of doctor honoris causa in 2008.1
