The Buono-Striano duo: healthy humor

There were still more than fifteen years before television arrived in our country.

The radio was the device that brought families together at night to have social gatherings.

The announcers, for example, dressed in tuxedos at the gala evenings, while the announcers dressed in rigorous “soirée”.

And it was during those years that a duo burst into the ether that became the legend of Argentine radiotelephony. Buono-Striano…

Rafael Buono and Salvador Striano were both neighbors in the San Cristóbal neighborhood, here in Buenos Aires, and their careers had a lot in common although they were very different on a personal level.

The duo began in their adolescence when they got together to liven up end-of-year parties.

Later they began to appear in neighborhood clubs, in the intervals of Saturday dances.

Until one day a contract appeared. It was to perform in Rosario.

So they decided to try their luck. The first he abandoned his job at the Post Office and the other his job as an electrician.

They began performing in the port cafes of Rosario, until on one occasion they were hired to perform at the famous Sol de Mayo cafe in that city, where the performances were usually debut and farewell. But the public celebrated the advent and declared it the event of the season.

At that time they earned fifteen pesos a month each.

One night a manager from LT3, a Rosario radio station, approached them to offer them auditions.

In exchange for a cash of five pesos per program, they said years later in an interview, they gave thirteen presentations in that circumstance.

They are already beginning to make themselves known.

Buono-Striano’s style was simple.

They generally improvised, but on the radio they were very careful with the expressions they used, since the censorship of the time meant that rudeness meant immediate suspension… or dismissal. Same as now, more or less! There is actually some small difference in that sense.

A mix of circus clowns and humorous minstrels, the duo’s emergence on the radio was a success that lasted over time to go through the entire 1940s with its own brilliance.

Around 1933 they returned from Rosario.

Already in Buenos Aires they established a relationship with the folklorist Martha de los Ríos, who employed them as guitarists since they played the instrument acceptably.

With it they appear on Radio Fénix, a station that no longer exists.

After accompanying the singer, and during the breaks she took, Buono and Striano performed some parody or comic act.

Its popularity was increasing.

Together with Martha de los Ríos they went to Radio Belgrano, where Pablo Osvaldo Valle, one of the station’s directors, heard them. Valle would later become artistic director of Radio El Mundo. He places them in a program for themselves alone.

Valle himself gave them a new program again. There they found the definitive accolade in the hour of “Palmolive en el Aire” integrating a cast where stars of the category of Francisco Canaro, Hugo Del Carril, Libertad Lamarque alternated.

Through the chain of Radio Belgrano affiliate stations, Buono-Striano began to reach the most remote corners of the country.

Those were the times of “Chispazos de Tradición” and the group “Los Bohemios” who were satirized with jokes and phrases that ended up becoming popular.

It was healthy humor. An example

(Striano) -How many family members do you have?

(Buono)-Fourteen brothers.

(S)-Are they all alive? She asked Striano again.

(B)-No…! only eight alive.

(S)-Ha! The other six died…? Striano insisted.

(B)-No… the other six… work.

The king of radio, Mr. Jaime Yankelevich, gives them a contract for… twelve years.

Currently there is almost no contract for one year…

They are claimed from inside the country and also from abroad, so apart from the provinces, they travel through Chile, Paraguay, Bolivia, Colombia, Uruguay and Brazil.

Cinema also comes to them.

They appear alongside Pepe and César Ratti, two fashionable comedians at that time, in “La Virgencita de Madera”. Together with Agustín Irusta and Roberto Fugazot they were in “Fortín Alto”, in which Ignacio Corsini and Niní Gambier also performed, directed by Moglia Barth, the director of the films “Tango”, “Riachuelo”, “Juan Moreyra” and many others .

Fortune and success smiled upon them. But a tragic bloody event separates the duo: Rafael Buono kills his lover and then tries to commit suicide. But he only manages to hurt himself.

He emerged from the subsequent trial with a sentence of twelve years in prison.

Salvador Striano was left alone, although after such a circumstance he looked for other company.

He found it in Adolfo Stray; with whom she worked for a time.

And when Buono left after four years due to a presidential pardon, their time had already passed.

Chronic diabetes began to sap Buono’s strength and ended up taking him to his grave on August 7, 1970.

The survivor of the couple, Salvador Striano, continued walking his eighty-three-year-old gallants through the San Cristóbal neighborhood, while the elves of an unforgettable time who were loose around there would surely accompany him.

Perhaps remembering that of… “very good evening dear listeners… it is Buono-Striano who finishes his work…”

And we close with an aphorism related to the trajectory of this unforgettable duo, which confirmed by example that there are no permanent winners. But there are irreversible losers.

And the promised aphorism:

“It’s hard to go up the hill. And it is hard to lower it.”