Immensely popular through-out the Spanish-speaking world and hailed as both Mexico's greatest clown and the Spanish Charlie Chaplin. Born Mario Moreno Reyes, he got his start as a tent-show song-and-dance man. Cantinflas became an acrobat and bull-ring clown (the clown who distracts the bull when the bullfighter gets in trouble). After appearing in unambitious Mexican comedies beginning in 1936, his first Hollywood film was Mike Todd's Around the World in 80 Days (1956), which earned him an international reputation for his performance as Passepartout. As his fame increased, Hollywood created a vehicle for him, the critical and commercial failure Pepe (1960), after which he returned to making Mexican films.
Mario Moreno 'Cantinflas'
Share on
Biography by AllMovie
Movie Highlights
Factsheet
- There are different stories about how he adopted his professional name Cantinflas, one of which is how he shortened the name from a heckler's taunt "En la cantina tu inflas!" ("In the barroom you talk big!").
- His films in Mexico and Spanish-speaking markets in America were so popular that when he appeared in his first American film Around the World in Eighty Days (1956), he was already a billionaire.
- Honored in 1980 with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
- He was once described as "the greatest comedian in the world" by Charles Chaplin.
- After his retirement, he devoted his life to helping others through charitable and humanitarian organizations, especially those dedicated to helping children.
- When he died in 1993 in Mexico, thousands of people attended the funeral ceremonies, a national three-day event.
- In the days after his death, the United States Senate held a minute of silence in honor of his memory.