However, during the build-up to the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, the family fortunes went into a sharp decline, with the result that Álvaro de Laiglesia's upbringing involved several house moves to ever smaller apartments and changes of school.
In Cuba his friend Pepín Rivero managed to get him a job with the Diario de la Marina (newspaper), with a weekly salary of ten pesos.
[3] In Spain he switched to the daily newspaper Informaciones and was then, in 1942, a co-founder of the weekly news magazine La Codorniz (Spanish: The Quail), committed, according to its motto, to producing "the boldest humour for the most intelligent reader".
He collaborated with Miguel Mihura to write the stage play "El caso de la mujer asesinadita" ("The case of the slightly murdered woman", 1946).
He also composed a number of comedy screen plays for television, including "Consultorio" ("Consultation Room", 1961), "El tercer rombo" ("The Third diamond", 1966), "Historias Naturales" (1967-1968) and "Animales Racionales" ("Rational animals", 1972) with Antonio Casal and Manolo Gómez Bur.