Cantinflas

While working in at the Valentinacarpa, Moreno met Valentina Ivanova Zubareff, who was of Russian ethnicity. The two got married on October 27, 1936 and remained together until her death in January 1966.

In 1961 Moreno had a son by another woman. Named, Mario Arturo Moreno Ivanova, the child was adopted by Valentina Ivanova. In many quarters he is erroneously referred as ‘Cantinflas' adopted son’.

In later years, he developed a relationship with an American woman from Houston called Joyce Jett and spent a lot of time in that city with her, away from spotlight.

Mario Fortino Alfonso Moreno-Reyes was born 12 August, 1911 in Santa María la Ribera neighborhood of Mexico City. His father, Pedro Moreno Esquivel, was an impoverished postal carrier. His mother was María de la Soledad Reyes Guízar. He was born fourth of his parents’ eight surviving children.

In spite of the lack of resources, Mario’s parents enrolled him into a good school. However, he was more interested in watching the street plays and as he became old enough, he tried to imitate the actors.

When he turned fifteen, his parents sent him to a government agricultural school; but within nine months he ran away from there to Jalapa on the Pacific shore. Here he joined a carpa; a Mexican tent show and began his career as an actor.

However, he knew that his parents would never approve of it and so he started looking for a stage name. It is believed that one night he heard a drunken heckler shout "En la cantina, tuinflas" (In a bar, you drink). The line amused him so much that he took up Cantinflas as his stage name.

Initially Moreno was a jack-of-all-trades. During the early period, he was a dancer in the tent show, a torero bufo or a comic matador in the bull ring and a ham in the boxing ring.

By 1930, Cantinflas became an established carpa star. For next five years, he performed in a series of carpas, where he danced, performed acrobats and also enacted roles relating to different professions. Initially, he tried to imitate American comedian Al Jason, but later developed a style of his own.

In 1935, he joined the cast of the Follies Bergère variety show. In the following year, he made his film debut with ‘No teengañescorazón’ (Don't Fool Yourself Dear), but it received little attention.

Subsequently, he met publicist and producer Santiago Reachi and in 1939, he and Reachi started ‘Posta Films’. Later in 1943, they were joined by Jacques Gelman, who became their third partner.

Meanwhile from 1939 onwards, Post Films began to produce a number of short films with the character of Cantinflas as the central one. Played by Moreno, whose stage name was also Cantinflas, the character became almost iconic.

In these films, he was portrayed as a bedraggled underdog, with scraggy moustache, pants that are always slipping down, old t-shirt or a coat, a dirty rag thrown over the shoulder and handkerchief tied around his neck. First of these films, ‘El signo de la muerte’, was released in1939.

In Mexico, Mario Moreno is best remembered for his many roles as Cantinflas. However, the most popular of them was ‘Ahíestá el detalle’ (There lies the detail/Here’s The Point). It was not only considered to be one of his best films by the critics, but also one of the best Mexican films.

Internally he became famous for his role of Passepartout in ‘Around the World in 80 Days’. To accommodate him, the makers greatly expanded this role and many incidents, such as a bullfighting, that were not in the book had been added. As a result, along with Niven, he occupied a central position in the film.