On April 21, 1993, the majority of Mexicans would be having dinner in front of their televisions when, very close to 10 p.m., the official channel abruptly interrupted its transmission.
“Cantinflas is dead,” a deep voice was heard.
The formal announcement ended there, but the programming was never the same. That and all the channels ignored their usual programming and dedicated their time to reproducing comments, interviews and fragments of the comedian’s films.
Without interruptions, the news continued throughout the morning on the front page of all the morning newspapers.
Mexico had lost a great man.
Before lunchtime, thousands were already queuing to say goodbye to the actor’s remains at the monumental Palace of Fine Arts, where an honor guard was arranged.
Even Mexican President Carlos Salinas de Gortari paid his respects there. “Cantinflas exalted the values and dignity of our people,” he said then.
A dignity that did not prevent that people, a people that goes far beyond the Mexican borders, from mourning their most beloved clown.
If the encounter with death had been part of one of his films, Cantinflas would surely have entangled it with a cataract of words, each more confusing. But not. The figure of death haunted Mario Moreno – his real name – since doctors diagnosed lung cancer, just five weeks before.
And the end surprised him without his usual mustaches, those that hung from the corner of his lips as if they were going to fall off. And without those pants that always slipped below his waist. Also stripped of his holey shirt and the cheap hat that crowned the character and in which fame had been established so long ago.
He no longer had on the costume with which he made smiles.
The famous Mexican actor would have turned 82 years old in August of that sad 1993. But his death on April 21 prevented it.
He allowed himself a joke on his dying bed
-Do you know that I have my epitaph written? He says:
“It looks like it’s gone, but it’s not true.” And he was right: Cantinflas could not leave.
Some data. He was the sixth child in a family of fifteen siblings. He had a very humble childhood and adolescence.
He was a shoe shiner, taxi driver, boxer and even a bullfighter’s apprentice.
Until one day – and there are days that open and never close again – a circus raises its tent in his small town. Your destiny is determined. Easy or difficult, you feel like you won’t want another one.
The years go by. She has gotten married, has a son and is filming her first film as the protagonist: “There’s the detail.” A total success. Then almost without pauses, 50 more films: “The Extra”, “The Circus”, “The Three Musketeers”, (a parody), “Gran Hotel”, and many others.
He is already a man of fortune. And there he shows the inner richness of him. The one that cannot suffer bankruptcies. And he dedicates himself to charitable crusades for the poor, in Mexico first, and in other countries later.
Her open hand is guided by a very open heart.
He was a friend of Sandrini – he filmed several films in Mexico. They were similar in their clean humor, in the possibility of making people laugh and cry, in the positive message in his films.
He was 55 when his wife, with whom he lived for 30 harmonious years, died. And the death of a loved one does not always kill. But he always scores. And Cantinflas was marked.
Although he lived 26 more years until he was 81, when cancer took away the most beloved clown in Mexico.
His was a kind of double death. For the irreplaceable actor and for the man, generous and supportive.
And a final aphorism for the human being Mario Moreno and for the actor Cantinflas.
“When greatness in the creator and talent in creation coexist, immortality awaits them.”
Source: Ambito
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