Don Alex; Director, Writer of Mexican Films

Hector Alejandro Galindo Amezcua, known in Mexican film circles as Don Alex, the director or screenwriter of more than 70 films in Mexico, has died at age 93.

Galindo, who set most of his pictures in the underworld, died Feb. 1 in Mexico City.

The director, along with Emilio Fernandez, helped create a burgeoning film industry in Mexico in the 1940s and 1950s. Featuring working Mexicans as his heroes, Galindo’s films depicted the gritty streets, bars and workplaces of Mexico City’s teeming barrios.

By writing many of the scripts he directed, Galindo adeptly captured the natural barrio jargon. His fans loved their screen counterparts and filled theaters showing his movies for more than three decades.

“I always made movies about what I knew and saw, nothing else,” Galindo recently told a Mexico City newspaper, La Jornada.

One of his best-known films was “Campeon sin Corona” (Champion Without a Crown) in 1945, the story of a street kid who became a successful boxer, only to be thwarted by mafia control of the sport.

In 1953, Galindo made one of the first films concerned with U.S. exploitation of illegal Mexican workers, “Espaldas Mojadas” (Wetbacks).

Galindo himself was an illegal visitor to the United States in the 1920s when he learned the motion picture craft by working as an office boy, scriptwriter and Spanish dubber at MGM and Columbia.

The director is survived by his wife, Mariela Flores, and four children.