Enrique Espejo (Yuca)

Enrique Eduardo Espejo Peña was born on 22 April 1951 in Barranca, on Peru's central coast. At fifteen he moved to Lima to study. He trained in public relations and worked for about ten years as head of savings at the Banco Hipotecario del Peru before comedy took over his working life. That bank-to-studio path later became a staple of profiles about him: a steady office career abandoned after an accidental first brush with television.

After relocating to Lima he studied public relations. Contemporary profiles say he approached a television channel while seeking information connected to advertising and commercial production for academic work, then met Tulio Loza and accepted an invitation to appear as an extra. The bank job remained his day identity until television work became continuous in the early 1980s.

Espejo's screen career ran from 1980 to 2025. On Risas y salsa he became Yuca, the comic everyman often written to take the fall. From the mid-1990s he was a fixture beside Jorge Benavides on JB el imitador, JB Noticias, La paisana Jacinta, El especial del humor, JB en Willax, El wasap de JB, and JB en ATV. Sketches such as Rambo and La jugada polemica made his reactions and improvisation nationally familiar. He briefly returned to a Risas y salsa revival in 2011, left live theatre in 2013, and appeared in the films Asu mare! 2 (2015) and La paisana Jacinta en busqueda de Wasaberto (2017).

Public reporting focused more on his work and later health than on a detailed private biography. After his death his children thanked colleagues and fans from his Instagram account for support at the wake, without widely publishing their individual names in major news writeups. Friends from the Benavides company, including Carlos Vilchez, spoke of decades of personal as well as professional closeness.

Espejo rarely framed himself as a commentator. In interviews he described the craft of being the comic foil, the fictional blood and choreography behind roughhouse sketches, and the pride and frustration of living under a nickname that eclipsed his birth name. He defended his innocence against the Seminara accusation while the case proceeded through the courts.

For generations of Peruvian viewers, Yuca was the face that completed Benavides sketches and the Risas y salsa era of physical comedy. Tributes after 11 September 2026 stressed improvisation, loyalty on set, and the way his mere entrance could start a laugh. Benavides said La jugada polemica was never the same after Espejo left for health reasons, and that he still cast imaginary Yuca roles when planning parodies.

Major international awards are not the centre of his public record. His honour was popular recognition: decades of continuous casting on Peru's main comedy franchises and affectionate farewell coverage across national media when he died.

Clips of Rambo, La jugada polemica, and Risas y salsa sketches circulate widely on YouTube. News outlets republished career profiles and fotonovela anecdotes after his death. His Instagram account yuquita_oficial became a channel for family thanks in mid-September 2026.

In 2019 Clara Seminara accused Espejo of inappropriate touching. In May 2023 a first-instance court imposed a three-year suspended prison sentence; his defence appealed. In January 2026 Seminara said she was withdrawing the complaint for humanitarian reasons connected to his poor health after the 2025 accident, while saying she had sought a public apology rather than money or imprisonment. Reporting after his death revisited that case as part of his later public life.

In March 2025 Espejo fell in Lince, Lima, suffering a skull fracture and severe encephalocranial trauma. He spent time in intensive care, later intermediate care, and remained bedridden after leaving hospital. He did not return to television. On 11 September 2026 Jorge Benavides announced that he had died in Lima at 75. An official detailed medical cause beyond the long decline after the fall was not made public in major reports. A wake drew colleagues including Benavides; his children later thanked the public for support.