Roberto Gomez Bolanos

Roberto Mario Gómez Bolaños (Mexico City, February 21, 1929-Cancún, Quintana Roo, November 28, 2014), known as Chespirito, was a Mexican actor, comedian, playwright, writer, screenwriter, composer, director and television producer. He is widely considered one of the Spanish-speaking humor and entertainment icons and one of the greatest comedians of all time.

He is recognized worldwide for writing, directing and starring in the television series Chespirito (1970-1973, 1980-1995), El Chavo del Ocho (1973 -1980) and El Chapulín Colorado (1973-1979). The character of Chavo is one of the most iconic in the history of Latin American television and continues to be immensely popular, with an average worldwide audience of ninety-one million viewers.

According to the newspaper El País, he is considered a comedian who created characters that entertained not only several generations of Mexicans but also millions of people in fifty countries. He gained international notoriety for having been the creator and protagonist of the television series El Chavo del 8, El Chapulín Colorado and the program Chespirito, which won the title of the number 1 comedy show on television, earning him great prestige and recognition as one of the most respected comedy writers of all time. artistic environment, which is why he never formally practiced the engineering profession.

Biography and career

He was the son of the painter, draftsman and illustrator Francisco Gómez Linares (Guanajuato, 1892 or 1893-September 7, 1935) and the bilingual secretary Elsa Bolaños Cacho (Oaxaca, April 4, 1902-December 22, 1968). He studied Mechanical Engineering at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, but never graduated. His mother was a cousin of Gustavo Díaz Ordaz, president of Mexico between 1964 and 1970.

His father, a well-known painter of the time, died when he was six years old. His mother, who never came to know the fame of the series El Chavo del 8 , died of pancreatic cancer.

He began his career as an advertising creative, which connected him with radio and television, in which he was, during the 1950s, a very active screenwriter. He also wrote several movie scripts for the duo Viruta y Capulina and briefly began as an actor with them in Two spoiled servants, in 1960. However, he continued to dedicate most of his time to writing, contributing with dialogues for movie scripts and Mexican television programs.

His professional name, Chespirito, is due to the film director Agustín P. Delgado, derived from the diminutive of the Spanish pronunciation of William Shakespeare's last name —phonetically Chekspir—, due to the height of Gómez Bolaños and for his talent for writing stories that resembled those of Shakespeare.

Between 1960 and 1965, he wrote scripts for the two programs with the highest audience audience on Mexican television: Cómicos y canciones, as well as El estudio de Pedro Vargas, of the Mexican Telesystem chain.

Chavo Sculpture in Cali, Colombia

In 1968, Mexico's Channel 8 began broadcasting and Chespirito was called as a writer with the offer to spend half an hour a week at his own expense. Thus, The Super Geniuses of the Square Table and his acting career were born.

In 1970, they extended their hours to one hour and into a program of their own. He himself was called Chespirito and the character of Chapulín Colorado was born. In 1972, El Chavo appeared. Both characters worked so well that the show was split in two, spending half an hour on each. In mid-1979 he started a brief program called La chicharra, a series based on journalists, without much success.

Despite being well known for his roles as Chavo and Chapulín Colorado, he was also the creator of several other characters, such as Chómpiras, Doctor Chapatín, Vicente Chambón and Chaparrón Bonaparte. In an interview with Teresa Rodríguez, he commented that he decided to add words with ch because it was used in "many rude words in Mexico."

Despite their recurring scripts, these programs became hits throughout Latin America, the United States and Spain, largely thanks to the sympathy of the cast of actors in their programs, integrated at different times by Marie Antoinette de las Nieves, Ramón Valdés, Rubén Aguirre, Carlos Villagrán, Florinda Meza, Édgar Vivar, Angelines Fernández, Horacio Gómez Bolaños and Raúl Padilla, who also found international fame.

In 1980, after canceling El Chapulin Colorado and El Chavo, their sketches reunited for one hour a week on the program called under his pseudonym, and remained on the air until 1995.

He also starred in Mexican films, written and acted by himself such as El Chanfle and El Chanfle 2, Don Ratón y don Ratero, Charrito and Wind Music.

Apart from his usual television characters, starting in 1992, he staged the play Once y doce for several years. He also ventured into the telenovela genre in 1991 directing and producing Milagro y magia together with Florinda Meza and provided the lyrics for the musical themes of La dueña in 1995 and Sometimes we will have wings in 1997 and directed the music for Miracle and Magic in 1991.

Personal life

Roberto admitted to having smoked for forty years, until he gave up tobacco because he considered it bad for his health. As a child he liked to practice soccer, as well as box and play with his toys. According to Augusto Rattoni, he liked the He painted and made drawings of landscapes and faces.

Gómez Bolaños had two relationships. In the first instance, he married Graciela Fernández, with whom he had six children. Due to his popularity, after twenty-three years of marriage, they separated. program, Florinda Meza, who played Doña Florinda in El Chavo del 8. The romance began in Chile in October 1977 even though Gómez Bolaños had courted Meza for five years. The relationship was questioned and Florinda defended herself against the accusations years later: «I am not a husband stealer. He had problems with his marriage and was well known for his infidelity ». In 2004, after living together for twenty-seven years, they married. The couple had no children of their own because Chespirito decided to have a vasectomy before meeting Florinda.

On November 12, 2009, Chespirito was admitted to an emergency room in a Mexico City hospital. According to statements by his son Roberto Gómez Fernández; Chespirito had a prostate complication, for which he underwent a simple surgical intervention.

On May 28, 2011, Chespirito opened his Twitter account, reaching more than 170,000 followers in less than a day, a total of 250,000 followers on the second day, and half a million in just one week.

Although no official figures have been released, there are several possibilities about his net worth. According to Forbes, since the closing of the series El Chavo, Chespirito received income of 1.7 billion dollars from Televisa. According to El Universal de México, an estimated fortune of 15 million dollars.

Political participation and controversies

In 2000 and 2006, Roberto Gómez Bolaños participated in television advertisements supporting the electoral campaigns of the National Action Party. In 2006, he also wrote a letter to then-candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador, asking him not to divide Mexicans.

When asked who had been the best president of Mexico, Chespirito replied: ≪Gustavo Díaz Ordaz in some things and not because he was my uncle, whom nobody loved. Before 1968, he was the best president, and if we look at the inflation numbers that Mexico had, it is justified. Then, Salinas, although he hadn't won, but he was extremely intelligent. And the same thing happens with Fox, his figures are better after Díaz Ordaz pa'cá. Now, the most accurate answer I can give is: none.≫

In April 2007, he joined the claim of Catholic and conservative groups that were fighting to maintain abortion as a crime in the Federal District, against the position of the Legislative Assembly, whose representatives were inclined to decriminalize it during the first twelve gestation weeks. Gómez Bolaños participated in television propaganda against the new law.

He is known for comments on the painting Guernica by Pablo Picasso, such as those made at the beginning of May 2007, in Colombia, where he declared that the work "is a caricature".

He toured Chile in 1977, when the South American country was ruled by the dictator Augusto Pinochet. Gómez Bolaños defended himself by pointing out that he did not visit rulers or politicians but rather the people who enjoy their work.^{[citation required]}

Fernando Rodríguez Mondragón, son of Colombian drug lord Gilberto Rodríguez Orejuela, head of the extinct Cali Cartel in Colombia and author of the book El hijo del ajedrecista, pointed out that Roberto Gómez Bolaños performed at a party for one of the sons of the bosses of the aforementioned cartel. Given this information, Gómez Bolaños' immediate response was that he had never been linked to drug trafficking in any of its forms, but María Antonieta de las Nieves assured that The Chespirito Show was presented at the celebration of a first communion of the drug trafficker's family. However, in 1995, an excerpt from a video in which Gómez Bolaños appears with his cast, performing at a private party for Colombian businessman Justo Pastor Perafán (today convicted of drug trafficking), approximately at the end of the 80s. Said material was revealed by the Cripton newscast, broadcast on weekends by the extinct Cadena 2 (now Institutional Channel) of Colombia. After this revelation, the news had little relevance and the subject was never discussed again in other media.

Acknowledgments

Hand print of Bolaños in 2008.

In 2000, Televisa gave him a tribute entitled "They didn't count on my cunning", commemorating the thirty-year anniversary of the program El Chavo del 8.

In 2002, he received his star on the Paseo de las Luminarias in Mexico.

In 2004, the Association of Art Chroniclers (ACROARTE) of the Dominican Republic and the Dominican National Brewery awarded him the International Sovereign in recognition of his career in Latin American television and his many facets as a writer, scriptwriter, actor, comedian and producer.

In 2008, the Peruvian channel América Televisión paid homage to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the founding of the channel. During his visit to Peru, he was honored by various authorities, including the Congress of the Republic and the then president Alan Garcia Perez.

In 2012, a tribute called América celebra a Chespirito was made by Televisa itself. In one of the presentations, the most emotional was the interpretation of Thalía, Thank you , composed by Gian Marco where she directly approached.

On November 20, 2013, Chespirito received the Ondas Iberoamericano Award for the most outstanding career in television.

Criticism and evaluation of his work

Although the work of Roberto Gómez Bolaños has enjoyed wide acceptance among the Spanish-speaking public for decades, the Mexican intelligentsia has often criticized it. According to Darío Martínez Brooks, no other Mexican comedian has reached so many Spanish-speaking countries. Television critic Álvaro Cueva believes that Gómez Bolaños had the ability to take advantage of television language and create original scripts that could entertain "children and adults alike." According to Alejandro Herrera, a professor of art studies at the Universidad Iberoamericana, "the laughter (of Chespirito's programs) was not through a double meaning, or through belittling or being ironic, but rather to highlight the idiosyncrasies of our society." in a very sincere way."

According to Luis Carrasco, professor of Communication at the Autonomous University of Mexico City (UACM), “in their programs there was real bullying. Everyone made fun of everyone, everyone against one, and it was something very normal. And if at this time what happened in those programs were considered, I don't think it would be so accepted or how much criticism it could cause [...] ». Likewise, he criticizes that Chespirito "began to respond to more commercial issues" in what he calls his second stage, when he went from Channel 8 to Televisa.

According to the sociologist and UNAM researcher Raúl Rojas Soriano, the jokes that Kiko made about El Chavo's poverty, the jokes about Ñoño's obesity or the community's rejection of the old Witch of '71 exalt classist behavior and macho. The vice president of the National Assembly of Ecuador Rosana Alvarado wrote when Gómez Bolaños died that “parts of Chespirito or El Chavo were not comedy. It's not humor to hit a child, to treat him like a 'dumb' or ridicule him. Not that".

The actor Óscar Bonfiglio, who participated in the staging of the tragedy Once y doce in 2013, affirmed that with Gómez Bolaños as theatrical director «there was never a need to improvise to make people laugh, even, we were prohibited from doing so, unless something unforeseen happened [...] he was very demanding because he had everything very defined and we had to do it as he marked it in the text».

Death

The teams Barcelona and Deportivo Quito of Ecuador performing a minute of silence for their death.

Bolaños passed away at the age of 85 on November 28, 2014 in Cancun, Mexico at 2:30 p.m. (GMT-6) due to respiratory complications.

It was confirmed by his wife Florinda Meza through the social network Twitter:

This you see [sic] is not a rumor, an invention, a joke.. My husband Roberto Gomez has died [sic] Bolaños (El chavo) @ChespiritoRGB I love you my life.

Florinda Meza, through her Twitter account.

The day after confirming the death of Roberto by his wife Florinda Meza, a white hearse went for the lifeless body to his residence in the Caribbean resort of Cancun, where he lived and died, to be transferred to the International Airport from Cancun on a private flight, and thus arrive at Televisa San Ángel, which was home to all of Chespirito's creations and where he was also paid the last tribute as a comedy icon: "America Celebrates Chespirito." A private mass was held there for relatives and close people, attended by Édgar Vivar, Carlos Villagrán, among others. In Ecuador, María Antonieta de las Nieves of the character "La Chilindrina" learned of the sad news and, during her show circus in the city of Ambato, the actress asked for a minute of applause for the death of Chespirito, in addition to offering heartfelt words.

Tomb of Bolaños located in the French Pantheon of Piedad in Mexico City.

After that, the coffin containing the remains of Chespirito was taken in a funeral procession that consisted of a Ford F350 truck adapted as a kind of themed car alluding to the comedian which carried his remains in a trailer which was also They put up two sculptures that represented Chavo and Chapulín Colorado, who was escorted by an operation with the formality that was required at that moment, as he passed the procession was received with cheers and cheers as well as by people who gathered to see him pass and offer him in theory the last goodbye, the crowds also said goodbye dressed and disguised as some of his characters, all this was prearranged to be transferred and veiled in the Azteca Stadium in Mexico in a burning chamber, where the team "of his loves" plays »: Club América. Simultaneously, his followers published artistic representations of his death, such as the arrival in Paradise at the hands of former members of the series, becoming The remains of Chespirito rest in the Panteón Francés de la Piedad cemetery where he was buried in a private ceremony on December 1, 2014.

On September 10, 2015, his widow Florinda Meza revealed that Roberto Gómez Bolaños had died of Parkinson's.

Filmography

Theater

Television

Cinema

Screenwriter

Manager

Books

Producer

Discography

Soap Opera Themes

• 1995 The owner "I have everything with you"
• 1997 We will once have wings “We will ever have wings”

Awards and nominations

TVyNovelas Awards

2008 ACE Awards