Cantinflas

For the film, see Cantinflas (film).

For other people named Mario Moreno, see Mario Moreno (disambiguation).

Mario Moreno "Cantinflas"
Born	Mario Fortino Alfonso Moreno Reyes (1911-08-12)August 12, 1911 Mexico City, Mexico
Died	April 20, 1993(1993-04-20) (aged 81) Mexico City, Mexico
Cause of death	Lung cancer
Other names	The Trenchcoat Mime The Mexican Charles Chaplin Cantinflas (pseudonym)
Alma mater	National Polytechnic Institute Chapingo Autonomous University (Agronomy, a few months)
Occupations	Actor, mime, humorist, comedian, screenwriter, musician, composer, bullfighter
Height	1.73 m (5 ft 8 in)
Spouse	Valentina Ivanova ​ ​ (m. 1934; died 1966)​
Children	Mario Arturo Moreno Ivanova (adopted)
Awards	Golden Globe for Best Actor – Comedy or Musical 1956 Around the World in Eighty Days Golden Ariel 1987 • Lifetime Achievement Award

Mario Fortino Alfonso Moreno Reyes (Mexico City, August 12, 1911 – ibidem, April 20, 1993), known worldwide as Cantinflas, was a Mexican mime, actor, producer, screenwriter and comedian of the Golden Age of Mexican cinema.

The character became, and continues to be, associated with the national identity of Mexico, and it allowed Cantinflas to establish a long and successful film career that included his foray into Hollywood. He became a Mexican icon and his legacy endures to this day; Charlie Chaplin even once remarked that he was the best comedian alive at the time. In the United States, he is remembered as the co-star, alongside David Niven, of the film that won the Oscar for Best Picture, Around the World in 80 Days, for which Moreno won a Golden Globe for Best Actor – Comedy or Musical.

It is said that he took his style of performing comedy, dressed as a "peladito", from the comedian Manuel Medel. Cantinflas's humor, so laden with linguistic features of Mexican speech—in intonation as well as in vocabulary and syntax—was so celebrated throughout the Spanish-speaking countries of the Americas and Spain that a whole range of new words arose: ser un cantinflas, cantinflear, cantinflada, cantinflesco and cantinflero.

Although some of his films were dubbed into English and French, the wordplay so particular to Mexican Spanish proved difficult to translate. He achieved his great success among Spanish-speaking audiences, in Hispanic America, Equatorial Guinea and Spain.

As a pioneer of Mexican cinema, Mario Moreno contributed to its flourishing during the Golden Age of Mexican Cinema. In his life he also worked as a businessman and became involved in Mexican politics. Although he was a conservative, his reputation as a spokesman for the unprotected lent him authenticity, and he became an important figure in the fight against charrismo sindical, the practice by the single-party government of managing and controlling the unions.

On August 29, 2014, a film in his memory was released, starring the Spanish actor Óscar Jaenada, which focuses on his arrival in Hollywood cinema at the end of the 1950s.

Biography

Apartment building occupying the lot of the tenement where Mario Moreno "Cantinflas" was born, the former Sixth Street of Santa María la Redonda, today Eje Central Lázaro Cárdenas 182.

Mario Moreno Reyes (Cantinflas) was the sixth of fourteen children of the marriage of the mailman Pedro Moreno Esquivel and María de la Soledad Reyes Guízar. Of the fourteen children, only eight survived birth: Pedro, José, Catalina, Mario himself, Eduardo, Esperanza, Enrique and Roberto. He grew up in Santa María la Redonda, near the Mexican neighborhood of Tepito.

He worked at various jobs: he was a shoemaker's assistant, later moving up to "bolero" (shoeshiner), errand boy, mailman, taxi driver, billiard hall employee, boxer and even bullfighter. In early 1928 he enlisted in the Mexican Army as an infantry soldier with training as a typist, but on May 23 of that year his father sent a letter to the army requesting his son's discharge. The reason was none other than Mario's age: he was 16 and had lied, claiming to be 21.

He married the Muscovite Valentina Ivanova on October 27, 1934. He was 23, and they remained together until her death in 1966. Because the couple were unable to have children, in 1962 they adopted a one-year-old boy, whom they named Mario Arturo Moreno Ivanova (1960–2017). The boy's biological mother, Marion Roberts, who had health problems, committed suicide shortly afterward, and there were unconfirmed rumors, which continue to this day, that the boy was in fact the actor's biological son.

His comic personality led him to the circus carpas (tent shows), and from there he moved on to the theater and to film. On the popular stages he shared billing with the artistic partner of his early years, Manuel Medel Ruiz, with whom he also filmed three movies between 1937 and 1939.

Moreno was President of the National Association of Actors (ANDA) and was the first secretary general of the Union of Film Production Workers (STPC). After retiring, Mario Moreno devoted his life to helping others through charity and charitable organizations, especially those that helped children.

Off stage, Mario was a cultured and reserved person who applied perfectionism to his work.

Beginnings in show business

Cantinflas in the film El profe (1971)

Before beginning his professional life, he explored a number of possible careers, such as chemist, boxing and even professional bullfighter, before joining the world of show business as a dancer. By 1930 he was already performing on the Mexico City carpa circuit, alternating between the Ofelia carpa, the Sotelo carpa in Azcapotzalco and finally the Valentina carpa, where he met his future wife. At first he tried to imitate Al Jolson, painting his face black, but later he developed his own character inspired by the inhabitants of the poor neighborhoods, with baggy trousers, a rope for a belt and a very distinctive mustache. In the carpas he danced, performed acrobatics and carried out various other tasks.

Cantinflas

Cantinflas, the character, was born—according to an interview given by Mario Moreno himself in 1961 to Luis Suárez of the magazine Siempre!—in the city of Xalapa, Veracruz, Mexico, precisely in its heart: the well-known Juárez Park, the city's main park.

As a young man he performed a variety of acts in traveling carpas, and it was in them that he received the nickname "Cantinflas"; however, the origin of the name is lost in legend. According to one obituary, it is a name with no meaning at all, invented so that his parents would not find out that he was working in show business, which they considered a shameful occupation. This is the explanation that Mario Moreno himself gave in his last television interview in 1992.

In another version, the Mexican essayist Carlos Monsiváis cites the legendary origin of the character's discourse:

According to a legend with which he agrees, the young Mario Moreno, intimidated by stage fright, once forgot his original monologue at the Ofelia carpa. He began to say the first thing that came to mind in a complete emancipation of words and phrases, and what came out was a brilliant incoherence. The audience attacks him with syntax and he realizes: destiny has placed in his hands the distinctive feature, the style that is the manipulation of chaos. Weeks later, the name that will mark the invention is invented. Someone, annoyed by the meaningless phrases, shouts: "Cuánto inflas" ("How much you puff up") or "en la cantina inflas" ("in the cantina you drink"); the contraction is created and becomes the proof of baptism the character needs.

— Carlos Monsiváis

But according to the actor's nephew, this theory is an invention of the people whom Mario Moreno made laugh. He also asserts that the name was the actor's own creation and that he took its true origin with him to the grave.

Film career

Star bearing the name of Cantinflas on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

At the end of the 1930s, Cantinflas met Santiago Reachi Fayad, businessman and owner of POSA (the acronym for Publicidad Organizada S.A.). Reachi was one of the pioneers of advertising in Mexico; upon seeing Cantinflas's performance at the Follies, he hired him as an employee of the POSA company to advertise beverages, electric batteries and automobiles.

Reachi created POSA Films, S.A. so that Cantinflas could make films with a better budget than he had had until then. The success of the initial films was overwhelming, and it was in 1943 that the commercial agent Jacques Gelman bought shares in the film production company Posa Films, S.A., created by the producer Santiago Reachi, where Cantinflas was the exclusive artist, and Reachi succeeded in internationalizing the figure of Cantinflas; Reachi produced, directed and distributed, while Cantinflas acted. This Reachi–Moreno–Gelman partnership was very contentious, because Reachi insisted on preserving Cantinflas's improvisations and "of the people" character, while Gelman wanted to dub Cantinflas's voice into several languages and avoid improvisations. Reachi left the partnership because of his disagreement over the dubbing of the voice into different languages and over the change in the essence of the character.

Cantinflas made his debut in 1936 in the film No te engañes corazón, but the film received little attention. In 1939 Reachi founded Posa Films, producing short films that allowed him to develop the character of Cantinflas, but it was in 1940 that he finally became a star after shooting Ahí está el detalle. The phrase that gave the film its name became his main catchphrase for the rest of his career. The film was a success in Hispanic America and was recognized by the magazine Somos as one of the ten greatest productions of Mexico.

In 1941 he first played the role of a police officer in the film El gendarme desconocido. By then he had already distinguished himself considerably from the typical "peladito" of the 1920s, and his character moved comfortably from being the marginalized lower-class man to a powerful public servant. The political nature of the rhetoric of cantinflismo facilitated this fluidity. He would take up the role of "Agent 777" again and would be honored by police forces throughout Hispanic America for his positive image of law enforcement.

Ni sangre ni arena, a satirical film about bullfighting in 1941, broke box-office records for Mexican films in several countries of the Americas. In 1942 he joined Miguel M. Delgado and Jaime Salvador to produce a series of parodies, including one of Chaplin's The Circus.

File:Embajada de mexico en alemania.jpg

Cantinflas with the Consul of Germany Enrique Fernandez Rivera and his wife Hildegarda in 1961

The 1940s and 1950s were Cantinflas's best decades. In 1946 he stopped working with Mexican companies and signed contracts with Columbia Pictures. By then his popularity was such that he was able to lend his prestige to the cause of Mexican workers, representing the National Association of Actors in talks with President Manuel Ávila Camacho. However, the talks did not produce good results, and as the result of a scandal he decided to back down and return to the theater.

On August 30, 1953, Cantinflas began presenting his stage play Yo, Colón at the Teatro de los Insurgentes, the same theater that had been embroiled in a controversy over a mural by Diego Rivera that incorporated images of Cantinflas and of the Virgin of Guadalupe. Critics, including certain conservative groups and Archbishop Luis María Martínez, labeled the work "blasphemy", and it was eventually painted without the image of the Virgin.

Yo, Colón cast Cantinflas as Christopher Columbus who, while going on "discovering America", made comic, historical and contemporary observations from different perspectives. The jokes changed every night, and Moreno continued to use his wordplay and double meanings to attack politicians.

In 1956, Around the World in 80 Days, Cantinflas's American debut, won him a Golden Globe in the category of best actor in a musical or comedy; in this film he acted alongside the English actor David Niven. Variety magazine said in 1956 that his Chaplinesque quality contributed to the success of the film, which grossed 42 million dollars at the box office. While Niven appeared as the lead actor in English-speaking countries, Cantinflas was the lead in the rest of the countries. As a result of the film, Cantinflas became the highest-paid actor in the world.

Cantinflas's second American film, Pepe, tried to replicate the success of the first. The film included brief appearances, or cameos, by Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland, Bing Crosby, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Sammy Davis Jr., Dean Martin, Maurice Chevalier, Janet Leigh, Edward G. Robinson, Gary Cooper, Bobby Darin, Cesar Romero, Debbie Reynolds and other stars. His humor, deeply rooted in the Spanish language, did not translate well for American audiences, and the film was a notable box-office disappointment. Despite this, he received another Golden Globe nomination for his performance.

In 1992, during an American interview, Mario Moreno confessed that the main obstacle to his success in the United States was the language barrier. After returning to Mexico, Cantinflas created his own company, Cantinflas Films, and continued making films until his last, El barrendero, made in 1981.

Like Charlie Chaplin, Cantinflas was a social satirist. He played "el peladito", a nobody with hopes of succeeding. With mutual admiration, Cantinflas was influenced by Chaplin's early films as well as by his ideology. El Circo was a "shadow" of Chaplin's silent films. El Circo and Si yo fuera diputado had much in common with the 1940 film The Great Dictator.

Cantinflas's films continue to generate profits for Columbia Pictures to this day. In 2000, Columbia reported approximately 4 million dollars generated by distribution earnings in other countries.

Impact

Statue in honor of Cantinflas at the Álvaro Obregón Hospital in Mexico City

Among the things that endeared him to the public was the comic use of language in his films; his characters (almost all of which were variations of the same character, but in different roles and situations) would begin a normal conversation and then complicate it to the point that no one understood what he was saying.

The character of Cantinflas was particularly adept at obfuscating the conversation when he owed someone money, when courting young ladies or when trying to get out of trouble with the authorities, managing to humiliate them without their realizing it.

This way of speaking was called cantinfleada, and in Spanish it became a way of saying ¡estás cantinfleando! ("you're cantinflasing!") whenever someone found the conversation hard to understand. The Royal Spanish Academy included the verb cantinflear and the words cantinflas and cantinflada in its dictionary in 1992. It later added the adjectives cantinflesco, cantinflero and acantinflado and the noun cantinfleo.

In the field of the visual arts, artists of the stature of Rufino Tamayo and Diego Rivera painted Cantinflas as a symbol of the Mexican man. The American punk band Mindless Self Indulgence recorded a song about Cantinflas called Whipstickagostop.

Cantinflas getting off a plane at Madrid–Barajas Airport (1964).

Cantinflas's style and the content of his films led many scholars to conclude that he had influenced the many theaters that carried the message of the Chicano Movement during the 1960s and 1970s in the United States, the most important of which was El Teatro Campesino. The theater movement was an important part of the cultural renaissance that was the social counterpart of the political movement for the civil rights of Mexican Americans. His use of styles and social themes is seen as a precursor of Chicano theater.

In the 1970s an animated series called El Show de Cantinflas appeared, starring an animated caricature. The show was aimed at children and had an educational purpose. The animated character was called "Amigo" and focused on a variety of topics to educate children, ranging from the origin of soccer to the origin of the International Date Line.

Although Cantinflas never achieved in the United States the same success he reaped in Mexico, he was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He received two Golden Globe nominations in the best actor category and the lifetime achievement recognition of the Mexican Academy of Film Arts and Sciences.

The Mario Moreno Cantinflas award is presented annually to actors who represent the Hispanic community with the same humor and distinction as the legendary Cantinflas and who, like Cantinflas, use their power to help those most in need.

Cantinflas's films are distributed in the United States by Laguna Films.

Critical response

The handprints and footprints of Mario Moreno Cantinflas at Grauman's Chinese Theatre (Los Angeles)

Cantinflas is sometimes seen as a Groucho Marx–like character who uses his linguistic skills to attack the rich, the powerful, the police and even the government. The historian and author of Cantinflas and the Chaos of Mexican Modernity writes:

"Cantinflas symbolizes the peladito who triumphs over the powerful by using his tricks" and presents Cantinflas as the very image of the Mexico of the transition.

Gregorio Luke, executive director of the Museum of Latin American Art, said:

to understand Cantinflas is to understand what has happened in Mexico throughout the past century.

For his part, Monsiváis interprets his performances in terms of the importance of the spoken word in the context of Mexico's "prevailing illiteracy" (70% in 1930). Particularly in the film El analfabeto,

Cantinflas is the unlettered man who takes control of language as best he can.

The journalist Salvador Novo interprets the role of Moreno's characters entirely in terms of cantinflismo:

In condensing them: in delivering to the healthy guffaw of the people the demagogic essence of their vacuous confusionism, lies the merit and is assured the glory of this sly son of the crafty and mocking city of Mexico, which is Cantinflas.

In his biography of the comedian, the scholar of Mexican culture Jeffrey M. Pilcher sees Cantinflas as a metaphor for the "chaos of Mexican modernity", a reality that was out of reach for most Mexicans.

His tangled language eloquently expressed the contradictions of modernity as "the palpitating moment of everything that wants to be and cannot." Likewise "social hierarchies", language patterns, ethnic identities, and masculine forms of behavior all fell before his chaotic humor to be reformulated into new revolutionary forms.

Death

He died after suffering a heart attack due to lung cancer on April 20, 1993. Thousands of people gathered on a rainy day for his funeral, a national event that lasted three days. His ashes lie in the family crypt of the Moreno Reyes family, in the Spanish Cemetery of Mexico City. He was honored by many heads of state and by the United States Congress, which held a minute of silence for him.

After his death, a legal battle began between his adopted son, Mario Moreno Ivanova, and the actor's nephew, Eduardo Moreno, over control of thirty-four films made by Cantinflas. The nephew maintained that his uncle had given him written permission to take the rights to the films while he was on his deathbed. Moreno Ivanova argued that he was Cantinflas's direct heir and that the rights therefore belonged to him. Eduardo Moreno won the lawsuit on two occasions, but Moreno Ivanova finally prevailed after two appeals.

At the same time, another lawsuit arose between Columbia Pictures and Mario Moreno Ivanova over control of those films. Columbia said it had bought the rights to the films four decades earlier, before a court that noted several errors in the documents. Moreno Ivanova wanted the rights to remain in his hands and, more generally, in the hands of Mexico, as a national treasure. On June 2, 2001, after eight years of struggle, Columbia finally kept the rights to the 34 disputed films.

Centenary of his birth

August 2011 marked the centenary of his birth, which was celebrated with a series of events and festivities around the world, especially in the Hispanic world. The Government of the Federal District organized an exhibition on the Paseo de la Reforma in honor of the Centenary of his birth.

Filmography and characters

Mario Moreno was characterized by having portrayed a multitude of trades throughout his films, generally of a humble nature such as shoeshiner, bricklayer or street sweeper, but also professions such as doctor, lawyer, police officer and even priest and teacher, all personified with his unmistakable ingenious, extroverted and eloquent personality.

Color films

• Cantinflas y sus amigos (1982) — Cantinflas (voice) (color animated series)
• El barrendero (1981) — Napoleón Pérez García (affectionately, Don Napo), street sweeper (last film)
• El patrullero 777 (1978) — Sergeant Diógenes Bravo (the 777), police officer
• El ministro y yo (1975) — Mateo Melgarejo (affectionately, Mateíto), bureaucrat and philatelist
• Conserje en condominio (1973) — Úrsulo, building caretaker
• Don Quijote cabalga de nuevo (1973) — Sancho Panza (co-production with Spain)
• Cantinflas Show (1969–1972) — Cantinflas (voice) (color animated series)
• El profe (1971) — Sócrates García, teacher
• Un Quijote sin mancha (1969) — Justo Leal y Aventado, lawyer
• The Great Sex War (1969) — General Marcos (in English, co-production with the United States)
• Por mis pistolas (1968) — Fidencio Barrenillo, apothecary
• Su Excelencia (1967) — López (affectionately, Lopitos), diplomat (foreign minister and ambassador)
• El señor doctor (1965) — Doctor Salvador Medina (affectionately, Chava), physician
• El padrecito (1964) — Father Sebastián (affectionately, Sebas), priest
• El extra (1962) — Rogaciano
• El analfabeto (1961) — Inocencio Prieto y Calvo
• Pepe (1960) — Pepe (in English, co-production with the United States)
• Sube y baja (1959) — Cantinflas, the elevator operator, store employee, Felipe Del Hoyo and the fake Jorge Maciel.
• Around the World in Eighty Days (1956) — Passepartout (in English, American production)
• El bolero de Raquel (1956) — Cantinflas, shoeshiner

Black-and-white films

• Entrega inmediata (1963) — Feliciano Calloso, mailman and secret agent XU 777
• Ama a tu prójimo (1958) — Luis
• Abajo el telón (1955) — Cantinflas, window cleaner
• Caballero a la medida (1954) — Cantinflas, traveling suit model
• El señor fotógrafo (1953) — Cantinflas, photographer
• Si yo fuera diputado... (1952) — Cantinflas, barber
• El bombero atómico (1952) — the 777, firefighter and police officer
• El siete machos (1951) — Margarito/El Siete Machos
• El portero (1950) — Cantinflas, doorman
• El mago (1949) — Cantinflas/the fake Magician Krishnar
• El supersabio (1948) — Cantinflas, scientist's assistant
• ¡A volar joven! (1947) — Cantinflas, pilot
• Soy un prófugo (1946) — Cantinflas
• Un día con el diablo (1945) — Newspaper seller, Soldier/Sergeant Juan Pérez
• Gran Hotel (1944) — Cantinflas, hotel worker
• Romeo y Julieta (1943) — Taxi driver/Abelardo del Monte-Romeo Montague
• El circo (1943) — Cantinflas, shoemaker
• Los tres mosqueteros (1942) — Cantinflas/D'Artagnan
• Carnaval en el trópico (Fiesta en Veracruz) (1942, re-released in 1946) — involuntary appearance
• El gendarme desconocido (1941) — Cantinflas, the 777
• Ni sangre ni arena (1941) — El Chato & Manuel Márquez "Manolete"
• Cantinflas torero (1940) — appearance as a clown bullfighter
• Ahí está el detalle (1940) — Cantinflas/"Leonardo del Paso"
• Cantinflas y su prima (La prima de Cantinflas) (1940) — Cantinflas (short film)
• Cantinflas ruletero (1940) — Baldomero (advertising short film)
• El boxeador (1940) — Cantinflas (advertising short film)
• Cantinflas en los censos (1940) — Cantinflas (advertising short film)
• Jengibre contra dinamita (1939) — Bala Fría (advertising short film)
• Siempre listo en las tinieblas (1939) — Chencho Albondigón (advertising short film)
• El signo de la muerte (1939) — Cantinflas
• Águila o sol (cara o cruz) (1938) — Polito Sol
• ¡Así es mi tierra! (1937) — El Tejón
• No te engañes corazón (1936) — Canti (first film)

Awards

Year	Award	Category	Film	Result
1957	Golden Globe	Golden Globe for Best Actor – Comedy or Musical	Around the World in Eighty Days	Won
1961			Pepe	Nominated
	Golden Laurel Awards			Nominated

See also

• Mexican cinema
• Comedy

Bibliography

• Moreno, Mario Cantinflas: Su Excelencia. México, D. F.: Gráficas Menhir, 1969.
• Pérez Medina, Edmundo. Cómicos del cine mexicano. México: Mina Editores.
• Reachi Fayad, Santiago. La Revolución, Cantinflas y JOLOPO *JOsé LÓpez POrtillo - Crónica de sucesos recientes, no tan recientes y futuros, 1982. Editores Asociados Mexicanos, S.A.

External links

• Cantinflas at IMDb
• BBC Mundo: Un siglo, diez historias: Mario Moreno "Cantinflas".