José de la Torre, Netflix star of ‘Toy Boy’, dead at 37
Actor José de la Torre, who starred in Netflix‘s Spanish-language hit Toy Boy, has died at the age of 37.
Montilla Digital was the first outlet to report the sad death of the star, who passed away on December 5th after a battle with an undisclosed health problem. He had revealed in June that he had been diagnosed with what he called a “serious illness”, and it caused him to take some time off from acting to receive treatment. His funeral service took place the day after his death.
De la Torre previously starred in Toy Boy since its inception in 2019, appearing in 21 episodes across its three seasons. The series tells the story of Hugo Beltrán, a stripper who was jailed for a crime he didn’t commit seven years earlier and is now fighting to clear his name. De la Torre played Iván, the owner and main stripper of the Inferno nightclub where Beltrán manages to land a job.
The late star’s other credits included 36 episodes of Spanish soap opera To Love Forever and short tenures on shows like Serve and Protect and Vis a Vis: El Oasis.
The star was born in the Andalusian town of Montilla and trained to be an actor at the prestigious School of Dramatic Art in Málaga. Amazingly, he told Montilla Digital, “When I joined, I was the only one in my class who had not been part of any company or had done any work previously at school or high school.” In fact, the first time he ever recited lines in front of an audience was during his audition for the school, but something clicked on that day. He said he felt like “he had been doing it all his life.”
De la Torre’s career was eventually launched by an appearance in a Nena Daconte music video. From then on, he plied his trade as an actor and a model working for high-end jewellery and fashion companies.
Acting was always his true love, though. De la Torre revealed, “From a very young age, I found refuge in cinema. But not so much in the interpretation, at least at the beginning. I was a child who did not stop watching movies, simply to entertain me, and that caught me, and sowed in me the seed that would later become the desire to want to dedicate myself to it.”
The star is survived by his mother and father, Antonio de la Torre Hidalgo and María José Delgado Espejo, as well as his sister, Marina.