Carlos Villagran

Carlos Villagrán Eslava (Querétaro, Querétaro, January 12, 1944) is a Mexican actor, comedian and former photographer who developed his artistic career in Mexico and Venezuela. He is internationally known for playing Quico in the Mexican series El Chavo del 8. He was also part of the cast of comedians of the Venezuelan network Radio Caracas Televisión, in which he also produced and wrote 4 programs.

On January 12, 2010, he announced that due to his advanced age he would stop playing his character Kiko. On May 11, 2013, he last wore his character's costume in Brazil On August 8, 2014, he announced his return to the stage in Brazil as Kiko in commemoration of the 30th anniversary of the first broadcast of the series El Chavo del 8 in that country. June 2018, he announced that he would definitely stop playing his character (Quico) to work on other projects.

In 2013 he was appointed ambassador in Porto Alegre, one of the twelve venues for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. In January 2023, Villagrán publicly announced, after more than 50 years, that he would definitely stop playing his character (Quico). Who was a very iconic person on Mexican television?

Biography

Early Years

He was the second of four siblings, his parents were Carlos Villagrán Chávez and Eva Adela Eslava, who came from a family with limited resources, but despite this, they managed to maintain their home with four children. His father worked as a photographer in the malls with a 5 × 7 camera and Villagrán (son) accompanied him, combining his studies with work to be able to support his family, due to this, Carlos was up to second grade high school. In 1967 Carlos got his first job, as a photojournalist for the newspaper El Heraldo de México covering the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico. However, taking advantage of his press photographer credential, in 1968 he began to frequent the facilities of Telesistema Mexicano (owner of channels 2, 4 and 5).

During these visits, Carlos began to enter another environment, which would be his true vocation: comedy and acting. He himself asked producers and comedians of the time for work, as is the case with Capulina or Los Polivoces; they gave her work as an extra on his shows, always acting but never speaking. He was also part of the cast of the Bartolo program by Enrique Guzmán, whose appearances were in various roles such as banker, artistic representative, gangster, policeman, etc. That same year, many actors emigrated to Televisión Independiente de México (Channel 8), Carlos was among that group; The first character that would make him popular, "Pirolo", soon emerged within the program The Millionaires Club (1968). After participating in El Club de los Millonarios, Carlos joined Rubén Aguirre, an actor, director and producer recently arrived from Monterrey, Nuevo León, who started on Channel 8 a program called El Club de Shory, a comedy show in which Villagrán played an old lady named "Lola Mento".

However, “Pirolo” was not the role that marked his career. In 1970, Chespirito (Roberto Gómez Bolaños) held a party at his house where he invited everyone who worked with him at the time. His friend Rubén Aguirre took Villagrán to this party as a guest. At this party, Carlos performed a small comedy sketch together with Rubén Aguirre. The creativity of both, plus the ingenuity, characterization and naturalness, made Chespirito remain impressed. Days later, Chespirito called Villagrán to be part of the cast, in the segment of "Los supergenios de la Mesa Cuadrada" within the program Sábados de la Fortuna, and later in the old program Chespirito. By 1973, when the show was cancelled, he continued working for Chespirito on El Chavo del 8 and El Chapulín Colorado. In the series El Chavo del 8, Villagrán played the role that would make him world famous: "Quico", a spoiled child, dressed as a sailor, with inflated cheeks and whose favorite phrases they were: "I don't like you!", "I give myself!", "oh, shut up, shut up, shut up, you'll make me despeeeeee! ", "what things, no!", "what could he have wanted to tell me?" and "rabble, rabble...prr!". In El Chapulín Colorado he worked playing various roles, for example, embodying the character of El Cuajinais as well as sometimes being called by his real name, & # 34 Carlos & # 34;.

His most famous character

Villagrán characterized as Quico in 2010.

Quico, later called Kiko due to legal problems with Roberto Gómez Bolaños (Chespirito), represents a 9-year-old boy dressed as a sailor, spoiled, envious and rude to his friends, but with a big heart when the occasion calls for it.

His real name is Federico, but he would get very sad when his mother called him by that name since it was his late father's name and it meant that she was very angry with him. Like most of the characters created by Roberto Gómez, he is characterized by his clumsiness and ingenuity. He is the only son of Doña Florinda (Florinda Meza) and lost his father Don Federico (also played by Villagrán), a sailor, who died along with the rest of the crew when their ship sank at sea. Sometimes Quico joked that his father was eaten by a shark, which is why he says that his father rests "in fish"; and of a "collapse" (tail) that a whale gave him.

The comic part that pervaded his character is the amount of gestures and curious expressions of his own that earned him a very prominent place on the program.

The controversial departure of Quico

Of all the actors who resigned, Villagrán's resignation was the most controversial, and never fully clarified. The versions of Carlos Villagrán's departure from the program are many, among which it is said that one could have been professional jealousy on the part of Roberto Gómez Bolaños since at the time the character of Quico became more popular than Chavo himself. Other versions indicate that Carlos Villagrán and Florinda Meza were a couple at the beginning of the show, until Bolaños managed to break up the couple and take Villagrán's place in the relationship. Although, according to Villagrán, it was Florinda who was actually in love with him, but they were not a couple in the literal sense, nor was Villagrán interested in being one, being Chespirito (from whom he sought advice) who asked him to explain to Florinda that he did not want a relationship with her.

Interviews conducted with Villagrán himself, Rubén Aguirre and Roberto Gómez Bolaños reveal that, after the last chapter where Quico appeared in El Chavo ("It is not time for classes yet"), Carlos received a job offer in Venezuela where they paid him 10 times more than on Televisa. When consulting with Chespirito, he told him that there was no problem but, according to Villagrán, Bolaños asked him not to use the character Quico, since the character was his own. For his part, Bolaños points out in the TV program & # 34; Conversations with David Estrada & # 34; that Villagrán had not only asked him for permission to use the character of Quico but that he had allowed it, although he told him not to use only the character of Quico and to do "many things", as well as that "not do everything with the cheeks" because the public "would feel harassed".

Bolaños himself points out that Emilio Azcárraga Milmo, president of Televisa, called him on one occasion to tell him about Villagrán's intention to make a series about Quico and to find out if he gave him the authorization to do so, something that not only accepted but pointed out that he did not want to charge anything for the rights of the character and that it was enough that, in the credits of the series and films in which Villagrán played Quico, a thank you to Bolaños for having allowed him to make use of the character. However, Villagrán refused to do so, pointing out that the character was his since he was the one who had created the peculiar characters of the character (his cheeks, his crying, expressions such as "shut up, shut up, you make me desperate") 34; or "rabble, rabble", as well as the choice of clothing for the character; despite the fact that Bolaños was the original creator of it); this caused a dispute over the use of the character. For his part, Villagrán points out that Azcárraga called him into his office, and asked him to do a project for another program with him as the main protagonist but supervised by Roberto Gómez Bolaños. Villagrán tried to explain the differences that existed between him and Chespirito, but Azcárraga only asked him if he was interested in the proposal or not. Villagrán refused, and this caused Azcárraga to get upset and immediately order the veto of the actor at the continental level, warning the Latin American and Spanish-speaking television stations that if they were to give Villagrán a job, he would stop them from supplying important broadcasts. such as El Chavo del 8 and the soap operas that were produced at that time.

Permanence in Venezuela (1981-1986)

After trying other comedy projects in other countries, Villagrán went to Venezuela in 1981, where he produced three programs for Radio Caracas Televisión, where he worked with the Venezuelan comedians Honorio Torrealba and Emilio Lovera, a channel that broadcast in that country the episodes of El Chavo del 8 and El Chapulín Colorado (1975-1979, 1989-1993). The first of these programs was El Niño de Papel (1981 - 1982), which managed to stay on the air for only a few months. After the cancellation of the previous one in 1982 he made the series Federrico (1983-1984), which was the most successful of his solo career. Its first season featured the performance of Ramón Valdés. Villagrán's personification in this program was based on his well-known character Quico in El Chavo del 8, and the plot was a kind of parody of that series. The second and final season was renamed The New Adventures of Federrico (1984-1985). In addition to producing these comedies for Venezuelan television, he was also the director of all of them and a writer for Federrico.

Villagrán was also part of the cast of comedians for a few months on the successful Radio Rochela program, also on RCTV, later he was the protagonist of a live children's television program called El Circo de Monsiueur Cachetón. The actor played Monsieur Cachetón, the owner of a circus. This show was kind of reminiscent of the Bozo show, with a lot of interaction with the audience and phone calls from viewers. It was broadcast by various independent Latin American channels starting in 1985 and kept it on tour throughout the continent.

His third and last series was Kiko Botones, in 1986, among others; these programs were lukewarmly received by the audience. They were exported to other countries, including Mexico, where it was broadcast by the former state TV channel Imevision -now called TV Azteca- without much resonance in audience ratings.

Return to Mexico in 1987

After his experience in Venezuela, he had an adventure abroad, the actor returned with his character to Mexico in 1987, where he obtained a contract with the small television station Tele Rey to carry out a new comedy project, called ¡Ah, qué Kiko! in 1988. At first it once again had the presence of Ramón Valdés, later being replaced by the actor Sergio Ramos "El Comanche" since Ramón Valdés was replaced due to his already advanced state of health in danger of death for his stomach cancer. However, the series was abruptly canceled after only a few months on the air, possibly due to the poor audience it achieved.

Reconciliation

On April 1, 2000, during a special of El Chavo del 8 that Televisa organized as a tribute to Gómez Bolaños for his long career, an alleged reconciliation was achieved between Carlos Villagrán and Roberto Gómez Bolanos. This was also the first time they saw each other again after 22 years apart. The occasion was very pleasant and endearing to all those present at the event, among them all the actors who were part of the cast of Gómez Bolaños throughout his different programs (except Ramón Valdés, who died in 1988, Angelines Fernández and Raúl Padilla, who died in 1994, and Horacio Gómez Bolaños, who died in 1999, who were also remembered and paid tribute). However, over time it was shown that this supposed reconciliation was basically a publicity stunt.

Roberto Gómez established legal battles with the former actors of El Chavo del 8 to prevent them from using the show's characters without his consent. This was one of the reasons why Villagrán moved to Argentina where he can freely use the character of Kiko since Chespirito had no copyright power in Argentina and the name is registered in Mexico as "Quico" while Carlos Villagrán registered it as "Kiko". There was no record of a real reconciliation, nor of a rapprochement between Gómez Bolaños and Villagrán, nor with María Antonieta de las Nieves, with whom he also had a legal fight for the use of the Chilindrina character. The friendship contact was only with some surviving members of the cast, such as Édgar Vivar and Rubén Aguirre.

After confirming the death of Gómez Bolaños, which occurred on November 28, 2014, Villagrán posted a message on his Facebook page regretting the event. Days later, he went to Chespirito's wake in Mexico, where he was able to hug and deliver condolences to Florinda Meza, leaving behind years of disputes. Despite the fact that by then he had already retired from playing his most emblematic character, as a tribute to the mournful events, Villagrán dressed Quico again.

Participations in contests

In 2004 Villagrán was invited to the Venezuelan game show La guerra de los sexos, animated by Viviana Gibelli and Daniel Sarcos, where he competed as his famous character from El Chavo del 8 in different gymkhanas such as The Intellectual Striptease, La Cámara de Tortura, Los Chismosos and among other ginkanas, at the end of the program the men's team ended up winning, giving victory to Kiko (Carlos Villagran). In 2005 Villagrán competed again as Kiko participating in the Ginkanas El Piso Fantasma, El Sofá Loco, Los Forzudos and others, although this time the women's team ends up winning at the end of the program.

Personal life and current affairs

Villagrán, c.1965.

Carlos Villagrán lived on an itinerant basis in various cities on the continent (among them Mexico D.F., Caracas, Buenos Aires, Santiago, California and Miami), motivated by his humorous work. His last residence is in the city of Querétaro, Mexico. He has been married 3 times and is the father of six children: Paulo, Sylvia, Samantha, Edson, Gustavo and Vanessa.

For several decades (especially between the 80s and 90s) he traveled throughout Latin America with various circuses that supported him. Carlos Villagrán was never the owner of a circus.

In May 2013, he made his last performances with his typical character in Brazil, which culminated in Rio de Janeiro on May 11 in front of about a thousand people. In his own words: «The one who is speaking to you now is Carlos Villagrán. We have been together for 30 years, but there comes a time when we have to stop. I say goodbye to you here in Rio de Janeiro. This is my last presentation (...)».

In an interview with the Brazilian newspaper O Globo, he stated: «I am 69 years old and out of respect for the fans I am going to stop competing against my worst enemy: the youngest Kiko that appears every the days on TV. I can't argue with him because he won't age and he doesn't like me. I'm going to miss the audience and the laughter. It's a very nice thing."

In April 2016, he performed as the character Kiko in Bolivia.

In 2017, the Brazilian film Como se Tornar o Pior Aluno da Escola (in literal translation: 'how to become the worst student in school') was announced, its release was in October and with Carlos Villagrán in the role of Ademar, the director of the school and antagonist of the film. The feature film is based on the homonymous book by the Brazilian comedian and presenter Danilo Gentili.

Filmography

Television

Cinema