The Sadness of Great Beauty
Or, RIP Francisco "Pepe" San Martin, who has taken his own life at 39
I am not morbidly obese (close), but I’m definitely obesely morbid. Ever since I was a kid, I have been interested in all things past, and as a part of that fascination, I’ve always been drawn to celebrity obituaries.
I collected Mae West’s and John Lennon’s alike — the only thread being that they had been spectacular, and were being summarized at the ends of very important runs.
I even invented movie stars — always women — and would sketch out movie posters from throughout their long, imaginary careers, dreaming up awkward titles to match the real-life bizarre, olden-days titles I found in the film books I cherished: Hellzapoppin’, Kiss the Blood Off My Hands, The Wind Cannot Read.
In college, my mom’s letters would frequently contain one-liners to the effect of, “Remember Bette Davis?” after a star died, and I went on to enter Celebrity Death Pools. Even though I hoped my encyclopedic knowledge of celebrities’ lives and impending deaths would win me some money, it always sucked to be right.
Maybe in some way my approach has been that we’re all going to the same place, so let’s embrace and analyze it.
My interest in celebrities and nostalgia drove me to write a comic screenplay about the world of autograph shows. To research it, I began attending them 15 years ago. After my fifth show, I realized I was, though still an observer, “above it, but of it.” I was spending thousands to fly to them and to buy as many autographs/photo ops (really, interactions) as possible. I loved the shared, often sweet awkwardness and the joy of connecting momentarily with a person who had been in a movie or TV show I loved, whether they were of interest to me because I found them to be great talents (Martin Landau), impossibly hot (Van Williams), camp (Angelyne), a part of a work of art that deeply moved me (Rosanna Arquette), or all of those things (Tab Hunter).
At one of those shows in 2013, the Hollywood Show in Burbank, I met an elderly dealer named Al. Al was a cranky but lovable on-the-make octogenarian with so many stories. Close friends with Gone with the Wind’s Ann Rutherford, he told me he’d been seated with her at an event once. When she left and returned to find Virginia Mayo in her seat, she said, “Tell that cunt to get out of my chair.”
Al also told me the story of how, during WWII, he was on leave in NYC and — already starstruck in general — he found his way to a Billie Holiday performance in a club and obtained an in-person autograph from her. He held on to it forever, but post-retirement age, he had begun selling off his extensive collection, and had sold the autograph to Billy Crystal. Al recalled seeing Crystal giving a TV interview and tour of his home, and spotting the Holiday framed on his wall.
Another reason Al stood out to me was his knockout of a helper, a guy in his 20s who tagged along and helped him tack posters to the walls of his booth and to carry boxes of autographs to sell.
My gay band of brothers flirted with the cute assistant outrageously, which he seemed to enjoy. (We were like 40, and when you’re 40, you still assume people 15 years younger don’t see you as dinosaurs, though — spoiler alert — some do!)
I didn’t assume he was gay, but did assume he liked the attention, and he posed for pictures with everyone happily enough. His name was Pepe, but the name he used when acting was Francisco San Martin. I did not realize it, but he had already had an arc on Days of Our Lives (2010-2011).
Pepe was a sweetheart. Al needed him in order to be able to do those shows, and I came to find out Al was his landlord, so perhaps he got paid or a rent break for helping, but I know his presence thrilled Al. It was an obvious crush.
But Pepe was of a different generation, and it eventually became clear all the attention was not received as enthusiastically as some others may have received it. It could have had to do with his feeling conflicted about being professionally out (he later told me this on Messenger) while seeking acting gigs, but I also do not know exactly what transpired — I just know that Al’s crush on Pepe was deep enough that he became emotional when I engineered a nice photo of them together that he could have, something he thanked me for when I later visited him at a senior living facility.
And yet, Pepe, who flaked on a lunch meeting we’d set up on my next trip, confessed he was wary of all new people, having had “bad experiences” — including with Al.
That broke my heart to hear, because both were wonderful — and very different — guys, and gays. I really wish that association had been more positive for Pepe, who deserved it to have been so, because I know it gave Al a lot of joy to simply be around him.
I was so relieved that when Al died, Pepe shared my photo and wrote, “May the angels guide you to heaven and reunite you with your friends and family. Go on Al, go home.” He hashtagged it “amigos.”
A year or so after we first met, Pepe took issue with an innocuous comment I made on Facebook about Nick Jonas being hot. I posted an image of Nick as a boxer and wrote that I’d still take Joe over him, but worried about “buyer’s remorse.” It was a joke, of course — I know the Jonas Brothers a little, and believe me, I’m not thinking I have my pick of the litter — but Pepe was hung up on “buyer’s remorse” as if I were implying they could be purchased. We talked about it and got past it, but it painted a picture for me of how hard it must have been for him to be an undeniably handsome guy — I’m certain from his reaction that he had offers that were not jokes, and that this weighed on him.
If you’re not someone who can walk into a room and feel every eye on you, you might think that would be a problem you’d like to have — but we can’t know how differently things can hit other people, and I came away from that with a different perspective, or at least an understanding of Pepe’s perspective, on beauty.
In 2015, I spotted him, masked, in a sexy video for a clothing brand called Radical Energy. He was down to a Speedo, and while he looked fantastic, I had a twinge of worry, wondering if he were changing his mind a bit about whether superficiality had to be so serious, or if he were giving up, which is a different vibe.
He told me he’d done it as a favor.
Career-wise, Francisco had a tough time. Post-Days, he was an extra in Behind the Candelabra (2013), had a stint on The Bold and the Beautiful (2017), and gained his widest exposure as the title character’s love interest Fabian on Jane the Virgin (2017).
In 2022, he was on a digital series called Hotter Up Close.
Several years after our last encounter, I randomly saw Pepe in NYC at the Pride March (2018). He was shirtless, ridiculously cut and marching, showing no signs of his previous reticence about leaning into, or at least enjoying, his looks and his getting looks. He posed and later thanked me for the photos, marveling how nice it was that I would take and send them (a fairly simple kindness, but those must’ve been in short supply).
He thought he looked “pasty as fuck” in them, another sign he simply was not seeing what everyone else saw. But he sounded upbeat, though this was when he told me he was “kind of” taking a break from acting.
In 2019, he gamely embraced his perfect looks, sending up a phone-sex ad to trash Trump in a very funny video:
We never communicated again, but I thought about him often, which is why I was so startled today, January 21, to read that he took his own life last week.
Pepe, this sweet and sensitive guy, died of “ligature hanging,” which is noted to be a relatively uncommon form of death by self-strangulation. The thought that whatever he was going through — and of course I would only know a fraction of it — would lead him to deprive himself of air and die alone boggles my mind. It is a stark contrast to how he looked, and though I can’t psychoanalyze, it does make me think that if he were feeling awful inside and yet was constantly being seen as the opposite, that could make things worse.
I am glad, though, that when he told me he looked pasty and I reassured him he was “one of the great beauties,” for whatever that is worth, he thanked me for the compliment, as if I were the first person ever to say it, and not the 10,000th.
And now, just 12 years after I met him, Pepe is gone, and so is Al, and so is Al’s Billie Holiday autograph — I just found out a week ago that it went up in smoke in Billy Crystal’s home in this month’s L.A. wildfires.
I guess Pepe’s story is an example of why I am so absorbed by pondering losses; thinking about a loss, like reading a great obituary, can help to in some way better define what had once been there.
Rest in peace, Pepe. You were not just pretty on the outside. I am sure that everyone who knew you knew you were a beautiful person. ⚡️
What a lovely tribute.
Beautiful piece