“El Risitas” dies in Seville

He was a good man. His perennial laugh today turns into tears at the news of his death at the age of sixty-five. Juan Joya has left, “El risitas”, one of the characters of the informal “gang” of Jesús Quintero, the one who popularized the cry of “cuñaaao” based on gestures and continuous laughter. It crossed borders and its popularity reached countries such as the United States, Finland or France.

Juan was a grotesque show, a show of the absurd. The broken doll from “El vagamundo”, Quintero’s program that launched him to fame. An example of the small screen turning unpleasant when the applause ends.

The last years of “El risitas” life were marked by illness, loneliness and internment in charity centers in Huelva and Seville. Problems derived from his diabetes led to the amputation of one of his legs, and vascular ailments led him to a Sevillian hospital earlier this year.

This Wednesday, in the middle of the afternoon, he died at the Virgen del Rocío Hospital in Seville, to which he had been transferred from the Hospital de la Caridad in the same city, where he resided. The aggravation of his ailments could not overcome his will to live.

Wherever it is He will have reunited with his friend “El peito”, whom Juan turned into the funny “cuñaaao”. The two were friends, and the death of the first plunged the second into a great depression. Since then I have not raised my head and lived almost without resources longing for past times.