Farewell to a silver-screen hero

THE movie actor Juancho Gutierrez, a matinee idol of the fifties and early sixties, died of heart failure on Sunday at the San Juan Medical Center in San Juan, Manila. He was 73 years old and survived by his wife, the veteran actress Gloria Romero, their only child Maritess Gutierrez-Balbin, and grandson Christopher Balbin, who uses the screen surname Gutierrez as a teen actor on the ABS-CBN network. Gutierrez had been at the hospital’s ICU since September 26 and died of complications of diabetes.

It was in 2000 that the actor’s health declined drastically when he suffered a stroke that caused his paralysis from the waist down. The adversity, however, led to his reconciliation with Romero long after they had separated in the seventies. Their daughter persuaded Romero to take in her estranged husband, owing to his condition.