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HIS LANGUAGE, A DEFENSE
Born on August 12, 1911 in Mexico City, Mario Moreno Reyes was in his childhood altar boy due to the religious maternal formation. His childhood was spent in the Guerrero neighborhood, very close to the brave neighborhood of Tepito, where he cultivated that audacity in language management to defend himself from the malillas -
BORN
Born the August 12, 1911 -
EXERCISED THE CHARACTERS OF YOUR CHARACTER
In his teens was an apprentice shoemaker, hairdresser, mailman, bolero, carpenter, ranger, sweeper, billiard employee. All trades that, years later, would perform in Cantinflas film projects, the character that immortalized him. He also enlisted in the Army at age 16. -
IT WAS ALSO BOXER AND TORERO
Before being famous, he practiced several trades: he was employed by the Postal Service, learned to play the guitar, sing and dance tangos. He was also a semi-professional boxer, where he tried his luck by calling himself El Chato Moreno and learned the secrets for bullfighting. -
IMPLANTED BOX RECORDS
After filming several short films produced by Posa Films, in 1940 he starred in There is the detail! , his first great cinematic success. For his work he earned a salary of 15 thousand pesos. With his next 45 films he broke box office records in Spanish-American cinemas for three decades in a row. -
CULTURAL SYMBOL
On April 30, 1953, with the musical comedy in two acts Yo Colón, accompanied by Amparo Arozamena and María España Vidal, inaugurated the Theater of the Insurgents, in Mexico City, whose facade is a mural by Diego Rivera, titled The history of theater in Mexico. Of 11 by 50 meters and more than 25 tons of weight, it highlights a figure of the mime as an intermediary between upper and lower classes. This montage, by the way, marked the last time the comedian appeared performing on stage. -
ACTION
His international consecration was acting in Around the World in 80 Days (1956), his first film in Hollywood; alternated with David Niven. Directed by Michael Anderson, his character brat dressed in the outfit of Passepartout, and thanks to him he obtained a Golden Globe as Best Comedy or Musical Actor. -
UNFORGETTABLE SCANDAL
Throughout their marriage to Valentina Ivanova (just over 31 years old), they were never able to have a child. The reason that was speculated was only one: infertility on his part. However, this subsided when, in December 1961, they adopted a little boy named Mario Arturo, and who would soon know that he had been conceived by the actor in an extramarital relationship with the American Marion Roberts, who committed suicide in a Mexico City hotel in November of that year. -
SLEEPED IN THE WHITE HOUSE
He lived with great personalities of politics, highlighting the presidents of Mexico, from Lázaro Cárdenas to Carlos Salinas de Gortari. In 1964, the then president of the United States, Lyndon B. Johnson, invited him to the White House, where he even spent the night. When they asked me what I felt, I replied that the CIA was spying on me. And if they find out about my dreams, "do they lock me up !?" he said. -
FIERCE CRITICISM
1966 marked a watershed in his artistic career: the death of his wife, Valentina Ivanova, on January 5, left him inconsolable. In addition, he became more sullen and the tone of his films changed: he became less humorous and more charged with political and social criticism. The first example of this trend was His Excellency (1966), in which he plays an ambassador who issues a memorable speech that criticizes the rulers of the world and urges them to achieve peace and freedom. -
MAN OF LETTERS
In 1969 he published His Excellency, the only book he wrote. It is a translation to the world of the letters of the homonymous film that he filmed in 1966, and which narrates the diplomatic life of López, a unique Latin American ambassador to a European nation. -
UNIQUE CREATIVITY
Between 1936 and 1981 he made 43 feature films (two of them in the United States and one in Spain), in which he gave life to various characters who, in a first stage, identified with the neighborhood, spontaneous and populace peladito, or immigrants rural that arrived in Mexico City after the Revolution. This is what critics attribute their success, rather than the quality of the productions in whose arguments they always reached out, manifesting their creativity. -
DISCRETE GALAN
Outside of the alleged affair with the American Joyce Jett (who, in August 1989, filed a divorce with the State of Texas alleging a 20-year-old amasiato with mime), he is only known as two important women in his life : Valentina Ivanova, his wife, and Iran Eory, although many also learned of their romances with Charito Granados and Miroslava. In fact, Jacobo Zabludosky said the latter committed suicide for the actor. -
ALWAYS LOOKED FOR PERFECTION.
In 1990 he financed the filming of the film Welcome María in Hollywood which, starring María Victoria and directed by Juan López Moctezuma, addressed the issue of Mexican undocumented immigrants in the United States. The comedian was always a perfectionist -
UNIVERSAL POPULAR CULTURE FIGURE.
With sagging pants, mid-hip, ragged T-shirt, raincoat on the shoulder (which was nothing more than a garment of cloth), paliacate around the neck, insinuated mustache and talk confused, Cantinflas gave rise to the creation of the Cantinflear verb, indicative of speaking a lot and say nothing, as defined by Spanish academics in 1992. -
YOUR FAREWELL
His last public appearance was on December 21, 1992 when, invited by the President of Mexico, Carlos Salinas de Gortari, to the Official Residence of Los Pinos, he learned that the entire country would pay him a national tribute with publications and wide dissemination of his cinematographic work. There he said: I love life so much, I love her. I did not ask for it, they gave it to me and they gave it to me so that I could live it. -
HIS DEATH IMPACTED THE WORLD
When the news was known, television channels and radio stations throughout the world dedicated ample space to disseminate details about the disappearance of the most popular artist in Mexico. The next day, the first pages of the newspapers gave an account of the death that shook the artistic, cultural, political and, above all, the popular sector. Since the death of Pedro Infante (April 15, 1957), there was no manifestation of pain with such dimensions. -
PEACE AMBASSADOR
At the headquarters of the Organization of American States (OAS) it was proclaimed in 1993 Symbol of Peace and Joy in the World. That same year he recorded his album All the Children of the World, in order to raise money for the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF). -
DEAD
He died on April 20, 1993, at age 81, at his home in Mexico City, a victim of lung cancer. -
EXEMPLARY TRADE UNION
Within its many facets, it also stands out as the founder and fourth Secretary General of the ANDA (National Association of Actors), from 1942 to 1944, during which he consumed the unification of the various unions of actors and singers, and began his project to found La Casa del Actor, which was given its name in 1994.
