Cantinflas

From Wikipedia the free encyclopedia Fortino Mario Alfonso Moreno Reyes August 12 1911 April 20 1993 was a Mexican comedian and stage and film actor known professionally as Cantinflas He often portrayed impoverished campesinos or a peasant of pelado origin The character came to be associated with the national identity of Mexico and allowed Cantinflas to establish a long successful film career that included a foray into Hollywood Charlie Chaplin once commented that he was the best comedian alive and Moreno has been referred to as the Charlie Chaplin of Mexico To audiences in the United States he is best remembered as costarring with David Niven in Around the World in 80 Days 1956 As a pioneer of the cinema of Mexico Moreno helped usher in its golden era In addition to being a business leader he also became involved in Mexicos tangled and often dangerous labor politics Although he was himself politically conservative his reputation as a spokesperson for the downtrodden gave his actions authenticity and became important in the early struggle against charrismo the oneparty governments practice of coopting and controlling unions Moreover his character Cantinflas whose identity became enmeshed with his own was examined by media critics philosophers and linguists who saw him variably as a danger to Mexican society a bourgeois puppet a kind philanthropist a venture capitalist a transgressor of gender roles a pious Catholic a verbal innovator and a picaresque underdog Description above from the Wikipedia article Cantinflaslicensed under CCBYSA full list of contributors on Wikipedia