Waldo de los Rios was an Argentinian musician and arranger who moved to Spain in 1962, became a key figure in Hispanovox, arguably the most popular and influential record company in Spain, and gained wealth and renown for his recordings of ‘Ode to Joy’ and other classical standards, some of which went to top the charts in countries around the world. In 1977, rich, married to Isabel Pisano, a beautiful and famous Uruguayan actress, and only 42, he blows his brains out with a shotgun. Why? The first half of the film deals with his rise to fame, the stars he helped make famous or shine brighter (Janette, Raphael, Karina, Miguel Rios), his relationship with his mother and his wife. The second half opens up to a hidden sexual orientation, the brutal police repression (‘La ley de la pelgrosidad’  and ‘La ley de vagos y maleantes’) and the sadness that he killed himself so brutally — listening to the voice of his unrequited love — just a few years before gay activism began to make a dent and homosexual acts were decriminalised in 1979. The film ends with one of the directors finding parallels between his life and Waldo’s; images of the 2 million plus gay pride parade in Madrid; all overlaid with Gardel’s ‘El Dia que me quieras’. Waldo never lived to see that day; his yearnings rendered impossible and leading to death, the change and celebrations possible to others later never to be his then. There wasn’t a dry eye in the house by the end, and and elderly gay couple sitting next to me were both heaving with tears. They, like I, lived to see that change.

José Arroyo