It has been 30 years since Cantinflas' death. The Mexican comedian and actor starred in more than 50 films throughout his career and died on April 20, 1993 from lung cancer.
Mario Fortino Alfonso Moreno Reyes, better known as Cantinflas, was born on Aug. 12, 1911 in Mexico City to a large family. He was the sixth of the 14 children born to Pedro Moreno and María Soledad Reyes.
He had a difficult childhood. According to the magazine Pronto, he had to leave school early in order to work and contribute financially to his family. He started working as a ball boy at a tennis club and later became a shoe shiner. However, his true passion was acting. His parents were not supportive of his dreams, and they felt he would never achieve success as an actor. He decided to try his luck in other professions and worked as a boxer, a bullfighter and even a chemist.
He took his first step into the world of acting as part of a circus. He began working as an usher and ticket attendant. His opportunity came when the headlining comedian fell ill and Caninflas came on stage to replace him. When he started telling his repertoire jokes, the audience did not laugh, so he decided to improvise. And that was the beginning of his career. The year was 1930.
(Video in Spanish)
His leap to Hollywood came at the end of 1936. That year, he debuted with the feature film “Don't Fool Yourself, Dear,” a film that went mostly unnoticed at the box office. Success came to him in 1940 thanks to “Heads or Tails.” Later came “El gendarme desconocido” (“The Unknown Policeman”) and “Ni sangre ni arena” (“Neither Blood Nor Sand”). They were part of Cantinflas' golden years that spanned the 1940s and 1950s.
In fact, in the 1950s, specifically in 1956, Cantinflas made his debut in the United States with “Around the World in 80 Days.” That film won a Golden Globe and made Cantinflas the highest paid actor in the world.
His more than 50 films not only brought a fortune to him. Colombia Pictures assured in 2000 that Cantinflas' feature films were still turning a profit. Specifically, the studio claimed that it had received approximately $4 million from distributing these films in other countries. The legacy that Cantinflas created still lives on today, 30 years after his death.
