Gustavo Alatriste

Biography

Gustavo Alatriste Rodríguez (August 8th, 1922 – July 22, 2006) was a Mexican director, producer, exhibitor, and entrepreneur. At the age of 17, he enrolled in the Escuela Bancaria y Comercial to study Accounting, but left after only six months. He married Ariadne Welter, an actress who appeared in Ensayo de un crimen (1955), a film directed by the Spanish filmmaker Luis Buñuel, with whom Alatriste formed a strong friendship.

A successful furniture businessman, Alatriste later ventured into the film industry as a producer with Viridiana (Buñuel, 1961), a story set in an old and remote estate filled with attractions and romantic entanglements involving a novice (Silvia Pinal, then Alatriste’s...