As a playwright his first work was Rosalba y los Llaveros, which premiered at Palacio de Bellas Artes in 1950, directed by well-known poet and stage director Salvador Novo.
In addition to more than a hundred plays and scripts, he also wrote two volumes of short stories and nine novels, and worked randomly as a stage director.
His career in the Mexican film industry began with the script for La torre de marfil, written in collaboration with Luisa Josefina Hernández in 1957.
In 1972 he received two Ariels for the storyline and script of Alfonso Arau's El Águila Descalza.
On 27 May 2002 he was given the Ariel de Oro for his lifetime achievements which include more than 50 films, remarkably his collaboration in Luis Buñuel's Nazarín (1959).