Yesterday afternoon, Juan Luis Munoz Alonso died at his home in Tarifa, known by the people of Tarifa as Juan Luis, the one with the “Navel” and as the wise man from Tarifa in the media projection that Jesus Quintero programs, as El Vagamundo or The Red Mice had reported this unique character from Tarifa, loved and known by all and who was, and certainly was, a friar before he was a cook.
Yesterday, surrounded by his family, with the absence of his wife, the remembered Elena Manella who died in January 2010, the wise man from Tarifa concluded his charming journey along the path of life that he was so passionate about and of which he was a philosopher of luxury and exception. At the age of 68, Juan Luis Munoz closed his eyes forever after not being able to overcome a serious lung disease that he had overcome in recent weeks. His body was transferred to the local mortuary where it was watched over by numerous relatives and friends who will attend the religious ceremony today that will take place at 5:30 p.m. in the San Mateo temple to be cremated later.
As a landlord and pig breeder, Juan Luis spent a good part of his life with his wife Elena Manella. As a result of that marriage, her three children were born, Elena, Juan Luis and Inmaculada, who gave her three grandchildren.
His friend Antonio Burgos used to say “Quinterian Juanluis” to name the idiosyncrasy of such a unique character. Certainly the terminology of Burgos’s pen could not be more accurate, since the wise man from Tarifa seemed to be taken from a novel by the popular and theatrical Alvarez Quintero brothers and elevated Juan Luis’s humor to genius represented in the way that Tarifa had recounting the Wedding at Canaa when Saint Joseph receives the invitation and tells the Virgin: “Although you know that I don’t like these things, we will have no choice but to go to this wedding, Maria, because this family from Canaa He has always behaved very well with us…”. That was Juan Luis, a guy with a special spark and if Burgos remembers him for Canaa,
, if that corrects me”. Juan Luis’s great art!
From the hand of Quintero his popularity summed up until then to his many popular clients who ranged from Felipe Gonzalez to Javier Arenas, through countless celebrities and even the The current President of the Government has eaten at Juan Luis’s, he reached levels of authentic social phenomenon and if he had been on social networks, rest assured that his sites would be among the most visited. He also participated in programs such as Canal’s It takes courage Sur and was the protagonist of the book El Duende de Cadiz by Fernando Perez Monguio sharing pages with figures such as Chano Lobato, El Manteca, El Libi or El Yuyu.
But behind that facade of popularity there was a simple man, yes, full of irony and sympathy and who was an exemplary neighbor loved by all. A man who perhaps did not know how to overcome the loss of her wife Elena and who yesterday decided to leave this world to reunite with her, her family and friends in a heaven that we are sure will turn upside down. Rest in Peace, Juan Luis de Tarifa, our Juan Luis.
