Cantinflas
Cantinflas, born Mario Moreno Reyes on August 12, 1911, in Mexico City, was a celebrated Mexican comedian and actor known for his unique style of humor characterized by garbled language and pantomime. Initially starting his career as a street performer and rodeo clown, he gained fame after a chance performance where his nervous speech elicited laughter from the audience, leading him to refine his comedic act. He adopted the stage name Cantinflas, derived from a playful audience remark.
His film career began in 1937, but it was during the 1940s and 1950s that he rose to international fame, producing and starring in numerous movies that often featured him as a working-class hero confronting social injustices. His notable works include "Around the World in 80 Days," for which he won a Golden Globe, and he has been compared to iconic comedians like Charlie Chaplin. Beyond his cinematic success, Cantinflas was known for his philanthropy, financially supporting many charities and families in need in Mexico City. He continued to act until the 1980s and passed away from lung cancer on April 20, 1993. His legacy endures, with terms like "cantinflear" reflecting his influence on language and comedy in Latin America.
Cantinflas
Actor, comedian
- Born: August 12, 1911
- Birthplace: Mexico City, Mexico
- Died: April 20, 1993
- Place of death: Mexico City, Mexico
Also known as: Mario Moreno Reyes
Significance: Cantinflas is a Mexican comedian and film star who is one of the most famous figures in Mexican entertainment history. Throughout his career, he produced and starred in dozens of films that revolved around his iconic character and even forayed into the American film market on several occasions. Alongside his successful entertainment career, Cantinflas was a committed humanitarian and regularly donated his wealth to those in need. After four decades in the film business, Cantinflas retired in the early 1980s. He passed away in 1993 from lung cancer.
Background
Cantinflas was born Mario Moreno Reyes on August 12, 1911, in Mexico City, Mexico. He was part of a large family that lived in a poor neighborhood of Mexico City. His father was a postal worker. As a child, Cantinflas sang and danced on the streets for money. He ran away from home as a teenager and joined a traveling tent show. Originally, he worked as a rodeo clown. One night, he was tasked with taking over the duties of master of ceremonies after the original employee went missing. Cantinflas experienced crippling stage fright upon taking the stage, and his speech came out as a jumbled and confusing mess of words. The audience was amused by his incoherent sentences, however, and laughed hysterically at the anxious young man. Seizing the opportunity, Cantinflas began developing a comedy routine that revolved around garbled language, double-talk, gibberish, mispronunciation, and pantomime.
Cantinflas's act became a hit with audiences. At one performance, a viewer shouted out, "En la cantina tu inflas!" (In the barroom you talk big!). The comment charmed the young comedian and he decided to adopt a contracted version of "cantina tu inflas" as his stage name, which became Cantinflas. He began appearing in film roles in 1937, making his big-screen debut in Don't Fool Yourself Dear. In 1940, at his wife's insistence, he began making short commercial films aimed at the Latin American market that advertised for items such as household appliances and trucks. The shorts were very well received, and the success encouraged him to start his own production company with two partners called Posa Films. With Posa, Cantinflas intended to produce and star in his own films.
Life's Work
Cantinflas starred in his first film with 1940's Here's the Point. This and his next film, Neither Blood nor Sand (1941), broke box-office records across Latin America. Over the next several decades, Cantinflas's films would make him one of the biggest celebrities in the world, as well as a multimillionaire. Legendary comic Charlie Chaplin called Cantinflas the best comedian alive, and his work was regularly compared to Chaplin's and other famous comedians such as Buster Keaton. Cantinflas's films usually featured a story line in which he played a working-class hero who stood against the injustices inflicted on him by the conservative, middle-class community. Cantinflas's career exploded between the 1940s and 1950s, during which he churned out film after film, many of which parodied popular American films and characters. Cantinflas eventually made his American film debut in 1956's Around the World in 80 Days, for which he received a Golden Globe. He starred in his first US made film, Pepe, in 1960.
Alongside his successful film career, Cantinflas used his massive wealth to help those in need. He donated his money to many charitable and humanitarian organizations. He was known to give away his wealth to anyone in need, and people regularly lined up at his door in search of an offering. It was estimated he gave away around $175,000 to the needy annually, being the sole support to more than two hundred poor families living in the slums of Mexico City. He built more than sixty apartment houses for low-income families in the Granjas slum of Mexico City. Cantinflas also regularly raised money for charities by appearing at multiple benefits each year.
What he did not give away to charities and the needy he used to finance a lavish lifestyle. Cantinflas had five homes. His home in Mexico City featured a massive art collection, a bowling alley, a swimming pool, a theater, a jai alai court, and its own barbershop and beauty salon. He owned his own airplane, which he often flew himself to his bull ranch named La Purisima.
Cantinflas continued to make films throughout the 1970s and 1980s. He would complete close to fifty films by the end of his storied film career. He appeared in his final Cantinflas film, El barrendero, in 1982. In 1988, he was awarded a lifetime achievement award by the Mexican Academy of Cinema. Cantinflas eventually succumbed to lung cancer and died on April 20, 1993, in Mexico City. Thousands of people showed up to his funeral, a national ceremony that lasted three days.
Impact
Cantinflas's iconic character made a lasting impression on Mexican and American cinema. His distinctive speaking style also lent itself to the Latin American lexicon, with the verb cantinflear and the adjective cantinflesque being added to dictionaries as words describing lengthy, incoherent speech that commonly inverts meanings and uses innuendo for comedic effect. Cantinflas was also made the centerpiece of a Diego Rivera mural painted on the wall of Mexico City's Theater of the Insurgents, which depicts various Mexican heroes.
Personal Life
Cantinflas married Valentina Zubareff in 1937, and the pair had a son, Mario Moreno Ivanova. Valentina died in 1966.
Principal Works
Film
Here's the Point, 1940
Neither Blood nor Sand, 1941
The Three Musketeers, 1942
One Day with the Devil, 1945
Drop the Curtain, 1955
Around the World in 80 Days, 1956
Pepe, 1960
The Little Priest, 1964
A Quixote without La Mancha, 1969
The Professor, 1971
El barrendero, 1982
Bibliography
"Cantinflas Lives Up to His Name." Los Angeles Times, 11 Apr. 2001, www.latinamericanstudies.org/mexico/cantinflas.htm. Accessed 17 Sept. 2017.
"Cantinflas, Mexican Comic Actor and Philanthropist, Is Dead at 81." New York Times, www.nytimes.com/1993/04/22/obituaries/cantinflas-mexican-comic-actor-and-philanthropist-is-dead-at-81.html?mcubz=1. Accessed 17 Sept. 2017.
"'Cantinflas' Unmasks 'the Charlie Chaplin of Mexico.'" USA Today, www.usatoday.com/story/life/movies/2014/08/28/cantinflas-review/12972863/#. Accessed 17 Sept. 2017.
Encyclopedia of Latino Popular Culture, edited by Cordelia Candelaria, vol. 1, Greenwood Press, 2004.
Pilcher, Jeffrey M. Cantinflas and the Chaos of Mexican Modernity. Scholarly Resources Inc., 2001.