Mexican Comic Icon "Chesprito" Dies

Famed Mexican comedian Roberto Gómez Bolaños passed away on Friday at the age of eighty-five at his home in Cancún.

Prior to becoming an actor, Bolaños was an amateur boxer, studied engineering in college and wrote scripts for film and TV.  He short stature and prolific writing earned him a nickname that was a play on words from "Little Shakespeare" and would remain with him throughout his life: "Chespirito".

His big break came in 1968 with a sketch comedy show that allowed him to develop numerous comic characters over the years including wacky medic "Dr. Chapatín", petty crook "El Chompiras" and bumbling superhero "El Chapulín Colorado". Yet he was best known for his role as "El Chavo del Ocho", an orphan who resided in a barrel located inside a lower-class Mexico city neighborhood.  An episode of El Chavo often showed his good-nature hijinks with his child friends and adult neighbors though his penchant for wordplay sometimes masked social commentary.

"El Chavo interprets every word in the literal sense and, thus, suffers the injustice of the world.  He questions society and our relations of power and friendship by emphasizing the significance of language," noted Colombian television critic Omar Rincón.

Bolaños' humor made him a superstar across the Spanish-speaking world where numerous countries still show his programs even though he stopped recording TV material roughly twenty-five years ago.  El Chavo-themed restaurants in Puerto Rico and Colombia have dishes named in honor of the characters from the program homage while visitors can travel to an official Chavo theme park in Venezuela. Bolaños himself claimed in a 1999 interview "this may sound blasphemous in Mexico but in Peru I'm seen as the most important Latin American comic of the millennium. And I believe it."

Chespirito to fans: I’m not dead

Mexican actor and writer Roberto Gomez Bolaños, (a.k.a. "Chespirito”) denied rumors claiming that he passed away this week.

According to Bolaños’ son, the false alarm was spread by a spam e-mail claiming that the man best known for portraying the comical “El Chavo del Ocho” died due to cardiac arrest. The message asks readers to play an audio clip in homage to Bolaños, yet the download is really the deadly “Trojan horse” computer virus.

Last Saturday, Bolaños celebrated his eightieth birthday away from the public eye. Several days later, however, he was spotted attending a Mexico City showing of “The Diary of Anne Frank” where his granddaughter lays the titular role. “I’m doing well for a guy my age and to live in this country” Bolaños mentioned to the press.

Online Sources- LAHT, El Tiempo, Milenio.com, Cadena 3, El Sol de San Luis
Image- univision.com

Chespirito denies drug dealer rumors

Mexican comic actor Roberto Gomez Bolaños- best known for his roles as “El Chavo del Ocho” (image) and “El Chapulin Colorado”- denied allegations that he has links to drug traffickers. According to a statement issued yesterday by Gomez Bolaños:

“I have never been had any relations with drug traffickers. Nor have I been friends with any ‘narco’. Nor have I participated in any transactions with that criminal industry, be they direct or indirect.”

The actor responded to remarks made by the son of former Colombian drug capo Gilberto Rodriguez Orejuela. Fernando Rodriguez Mondragon asserted in an upcoming book that Gomez Bolaños and other artists (e.g. Mexican musician Juan Gabriel, Cuban singer Albita) provided entertainment during parties hosted by the former Cartel de Cali head.

The actor went on to tell the Associated Press that he has worked in “millions of places” including weddings where he “didn’t even know who was getting hitched.”

Source (English)- Wikipedia

Sources (Spanish)- El Diario/La Prensa, El Tiempo, Milenio

Image- univision.com