Mario Moreno, “Cantinflas “: Biography Of A Great Comic
There are great similarities, both in life and in style of humor, between Charles Chaplin and Mario Moreno, also known as Cantinflas. In fact, the two admired each other, and that admiration was public and widely celebrated. You could say that both embody the same concept, one in its English version and the other in its Latin American version.
Mario Moreno, “Cantinflas”, was perhaps the most important comic in the history of Latin America. His particular way of using language, combining rhetoric, demagoguery and the chaos of the word, gave rise to the verb “cantinflear”, which was accepted by the Royal Spanish Academy in 1990.
It is precisely because the word occupies a central place in his humor that his great successes have taken place with the Spanish-speaking public. He did not experience the same success when his films were dubbed into other languages. Even if the translation could be very correct, we lost the meaning of what he was saying, of his puns which, in Spanish, refer to picaresque.
Mario Moreno’s early years
Like Charles Chaplin, Mario Moreno was born in the midst of poverty. He had 13 siblings, but only seven of them survived childbirth. He spent all his childhood in the neighborhood of Santa María la Redonda, very close to Tepito, which is considered one of the poorest and most dangerous areas of Mexico City.
His baptismal name was Mario Fortino Alfonso Moreno Reyes and he was born on August 12, 1911. During his childhood and early youth, he did several odd jobs, such as postman, shoe shine and runner.
In 1928 he joined the army but lied about his age in order to enter; he was only 16 and said he was 21. The lie was discovered and as a result he was kicked out.
Mario also tried to be a boxer, a bullfighter and even a dancer. In the early 1930s, he started working in the carpas , traveling theaters in Mexico City. There, Mario Moreno began to create and bring to life his iconic character, Cantinflas. During this stage, he married Valentina Ivanova, whom he accompanied until her death.
The birth of Cantinflas
Even if there is no certainty about this, everything seems to indicate that the name of Cantinflas appeared during one of his performances in one of these walking carpas.
It is said that one day, he was given the opportunity to dramatize a monologue ; however, he was very nervous and forgot much of his speech. The result was an incomprehensible, but funny, enumeration. This is where the central trait of his character comes from.
It is also said that this confusion of words gave rise to the expression “cantina inflas” which subsequently contracted to form the name Cantinflas. The heirs of Mario Moreno, however, assure that this version is false and that the great comic took to his grave the secret of the origin of this name.
Anyway, it is certain that Mario Moreno created Cantinflas, a character who represented the young poor of Mexico. His appearance in itself was already fun, the spectacle and success was assured.
At first, he interpreted people of power. He always got away with the mess he made with his words. Mexico and Latin America loved his character, his white humor, his gentleness and his social criticism.
A dark side
In Mexico, we loved Mario Moreno “Cantinflas” so much that we voted for him in many elections, without even being a candidate. The comedian, like Chaplin, has turned into the leader of a syndicate of actors. However, he did not achieve great things in this area. Documents uncovered after his death indicate that he was likely allied with some obscure power groups.
As he gained success – and money – his films changed and so did he. He ceased to represent the poor Mexican and began to convey, in his films, apparently social messages but, basically, institutional. Moreover, he maintained an unforgivable silence during the massacre of students that occurred in Mexico City in 1968.
We know very little about our family life, and the little we do know is quite obscure. One of her grandsons and her own son committed suicide. His nephew did so in 2014 and his son in 2017. Another of his grandsons has lived on the streets several times because of his addictions. And the comic’s third niece suffered domestic violence to an extreme degree: her husband caused her 200 facial fractures.
Mario Moreno, for his part, died before seeing these terrible events. During his lifetime, little was known about his family. His death took place in 1993 from lung cancer. You could say that people still love Cantinflas but have a lot of doubts about who Mario Moreno, its creator, really was.
Our thoughts Charlie Chaplin’s quotes help us understand life better and unleash our optimism.
