Roberto Gómez Bolaños
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Roberto Gómez Bolaños (born February 21, 1929), best known by his professional name of Chespirito, is a Mexican writer, actor, director, comedian, humourist, and songwriter.
Gómez Bolaños was born in Mexico City. Before becoming an actor, he was an amateur boxer. He began studying Engineering at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), and, according to one of his professors, Esteban Salinas Elorriaga, now professor emeritus, excelled in math. He wrote a number of plays, and contributed dialogue for scripts of films and television shows in Mexico, as well as some character acting work before he became famous. His stage name of Chespirito was given by a producer during Gomez Bolaños' first years as a writer and was concocted from the dimutive form the Mexican pronunciation of the name of William Shakespeare or Shakespiercito, meaning "Little Shakepeare" or "Little Boy Shakespeare".
Chespirito was discovered as an actor one day as he was making a line to apply for a job as a writer at Televisa. The network quickly signed him and soon he began writing and starring in his children comedy shows. He continuously starred in shows on Mexican television from 1970 to 1995 and became well known throughout Latin America.
His best known roles were in the shows El Chavo Del Ocho and El Chapulín Colorado, as El Chavo and El Chapulín Colorado transmitted in the Mexican TV Network Televisa . Other shows produced and starred by him were the short-lived La chicharra and, during his last years on air, Chespirito featuring a bunch of new characters as Los caquitos, Los chifladitos and others.
In El Chavo Del Ocho, Chespirito played an 8 year old boy who often took refuge inside a wooden rain barrel in a Mexican neighborhood, and in El Chapulín Colorado he played a good hearted superhero who always got involved in funny situations. The Simpsons creator Matt Groening has declared that he created the Bumblebee Man character after watching El Chapulín Colorado in a motel on the U.S.-Mexico border.
These two shows became hits all over Latin America, Brazil, the United States and Spain, and the stars of the show found international fame.
In Brazil, his shows (translated to Portuguese), el Chavo Del Ocho and El Chapulin Colorado, is ared more 20 year and still so popular, the reason, no one can explain, but, sometimes, it gets audience records, and also, there are some "lost episodes" that became too popular(they always find a lost episode sometimes). He also started in such Mexican movies as El Chanfle, and El Chanfle 2.
On November 19, 2004, he married actress Florinda Meza, who starred as Doña Florinda in El Chavo and who frequently participated in El Chapulín Colorado.
After show production was stopped both for El Chavo and El Chapulín, both started to tour Mexico and the rest of Latin America and the United States with different plays, sometimes playing the characters that made them famous.
On November 26, 2003, Chespirito and Florinda Meza received the keys to the city of Cicero, Illinois.
Roberto Gómez Bolaños and Edgar Vivar, one of the actors from his shows, once received an award from a Laurel and Hardy fan club for performing the funniest impersonation of Laurel and Hardy in Latin America. This impersonation was made during an episode of El Chapulín Colorado.
During the 2000 and the 2006 Presidential electoral campaings in Mexico he openly supported the PAN (Partido Acción Nacional, National Action Party) in a TV commercial urging people to vote for this party just like him.
