| Tuco Ramírez | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Information | |
| Played by | Eli Wallach |
| Appears in | The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly |
| Status | Alive |
| Location | Transitory |
"There are two kinds of people in the world, my friend: Those with a rope around the neck, and the people who have the job of doing the cutting."
-Tuco to Blondie after a scam
Tuco Ramírez or "The Ugly", is one of the main protagonists of The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. He finds out the name of the cemetery where Bill Carson hid $200,000, but only Blondie knows the name on the grave. This forces Tuco to become reluctant partners with Blondie. He is played by Eli Wallach.
Background
When Tuco was roughly ten or twelve, his brother, Pablo, left his family to become a priest. Tuco stayed behind with his parents and he soon became a bandit to earn money. He eventually completely drifted away from his family as he became more infamous. By the time of The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, Tuco's mother had been dead for years and his father dies within the events of the movie. Pablo tells Tuco that his father requested he be there when he died even though there was no way to inform Tuco. When Tuco confronted his brother after their father's death, they discussed the differences in their life choices and eventually come to harming each other in the discussion. After, Pablo asks for forgiveness and for his brother to leave.
Trivia
- Eli Wallach has come close to dying many times on set playing as the character Tuco.
-He was almost decapitated filming the scene where he breaks his chains with the train; for if he had lifted his head up seconds later, his head would have been brutally hit by one of the steps to get on to the train. Sergio Leone asked to shoot the scene again but Eli didn't cooperate.
-Eli drank from a bottle containing acid to help break the gold bags open because he believed it to be his favorite soda. Poison Control was called immediately along with many drinks of milk as a neutralizer. Eli suffered from no major injuries or sickness afterwards except for a sore mouth.
-He was in plenty of danger when shooting the scenes where his character would be hanged because if the explosive charge in the noose's rope failed, he would have been strangled; or when the horse bolts out of town with him riding on it, Eli could have fallen off and been seriously injured; along with the fact he had no control over the horse for his hands were truly tied behind his back. - His full name is "Tuco Benedicto Pacifico Juan Maria Ramirez," but he is more commonly known as The Rat, or just Tuco.
- Tuco is the character that brought popularity to the phrase "There are two kind of people in the world..." using it more frequently than Blondie.
- He was originally wanted alive at $2000. But Blondie was able to boost it to $3000 after two stunts at the gallows. After the second stunt though Blondie no longer did the scam with him believing Tuco wouldn't be worth more than $3000 dollars.
- In the scene where Tuco is assembling a new gun, his actor had very little knowledge of firearms so he was improvising the entire time he was creating that pistol.
- The reason Tuco has his gun hanging from his neck on a lanyard was because Eli Wallach had trouble putting his pistol in its holster without looking right at it; which is a rather wimpy way to put a gun in a holster compared to the pistol twirls Clint Eastwood could do without even glancing. Sergio Leone also saw it as an opportunity for Tuco to be able to draw his gun cleverly by shaking his neck and catching the gun in mid air. Eli said he couldn't do it so Sergio attempted it himself, only succeeding in hitting himself in the crotch. From there Sergio agreed that Tuco can have his pistol sitting next to his belt.