The Mexican Everyman : Common Folk and Presidents Mourn Mexico’s Comic Hero

The presidents of Mexico, Peru and El Salvador sang his praises. His colleagues, some of this nation’s entertainment lights, tearfully recalled the joy he brought all who saw his work. But perhaps the deepest, most moving tribute paid this week to Mario Moreno--better known as Mexico’s beloved comedian, Cantinflas--came from his ordinary fans.

Thousands of them braved a downpour here. They queued into lines that went on for blocks. Grasping flowers and exchanging stories, they gathered to pay a final farewell to Moreno, who died late Tuesday at age 81 of lung cancer, as his body lay in state Wednesday and Thursday at an actors guild-owned theater and at the Palace of Fine Arts.

“We came for Cantinflas,” said housewife Rosa Yanez, standing in line to enter the theater and view the closed casket, her hair and clothes soaking wet. “For us, he was a very good actor. There is no one else like him.”

Indeed, for Mexicans especially, Moreno--known internationally for his portrayal of Passpartout, valet of Phineas Fogg in the movie “Around the World in 80 Days”--was renowned for the comic character he had created, a sort of Everyman with the virtues and foibles often identified with this nation’s working class.

Cantinflas was a penniless, urban slum dweller who used his wit and unfailing good luck to escape from impossible situations. He wore a tiny mustache at each end of his lip, a tattered vest, a straw hat and a pair of worn trousers held up by a rope.

“Cantinflas was . . . in our collective memory a formidable popular creation, an emanation of the working class that goes from danzon (slow dancing) to the picaresque, from broken hips to broken syntax,” said writer Carlos Monsivais.

Monsivais and other experts noted that Moreno had become such a cultural icon that his broken syntax added the word cantinflear --to speak endlessly while saying nothing--to the Spanish language.

As testimony to the late comedian’s import, tributes to him poured in from around the Spanish-speaking world.

Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori praised Moreno, noting that he “criticized without bitterness.” Salvadoran President Alfredo Cristiani observed that “his films always carried a social message.”

Mexican President Carlos Salinas de Gortari, expressing his condolences to Moreno’s only son, also named Mario, said: “What is important is that, although he is gone, he is still with us in the memory of the realistic character he created, the dignity he gave that character and, above all, his common touch.”

At the Jorge Negrete Theater, Moreno’s colleagues gathered Wednesday to recall his brilliant career, which took him personally from poverty to wealth and international recognition. Present at the gathering were noted Mexican singer-director Raul Vale, actor Julio Aleman and comedian Adalberto Martinez, known as “Resortes.”

Amparo Arozmena, who began her career working with Moreno in the vaudeville-like theaters called carpas , said “he will be remembered by all social classes and generations.”

Others recalled how Moreno, who was to be cremated this morning at the Spanish Cemetery, began his career at age 18. It started in true movie-style when the master of ceremonies at a vaudeville-style show fell ill and Moreno went on in his place. When the man he was substituting for recovered, the crowds demanded Moreno replace him. He went on to become a star and to make 56 movies--his last, “The Streetsweeper,” was released in 1981.

Coverage of Moreno’s death and the viewings of his body took up 25 minutes of Mexico’s main, nightly, half-hour newscast Wednesday.

When his body was moved from the theater to the Palace of Fine Arts, that event was covered live and reports were repeated throughout Thursday morning.

Moreno’s death was the top story in the Wednesday and Thursday newspapers. The coverage dominated the front page and extensive stories on his life filled the papers.

La Jornada, an independent paper, carried a touching cartoon of Cantinflas being greeted at heaven’s pearly gates by Charlie Chaplin, another beloved comedian to whom many in Latin American often compared him; Chaplin himself had praised Cantinflas as “the world’s greatest comedian.”

Early Thursday morning, thousands of mourners lined the streets between the theater and the Palace of Fine Arts, moving to touch the hearse as it passed.

The hearse was escorted by patrol car No. 777, the vehicle supposedly assigned to Moreno when he played a police officer in his penultimate movie, made in 1977.

At the theater itself, the mood was cheerful, with actors leading the crowd in chants of the epitaph that Moreno chose for himself: “Parece que se ha ido, pero no es cierto . . . “-- “He seems to be gone, but it is not true. . . .”