ENTERTAINMENT : Movie Shines Spotlight on Developer of Mambo

“Since I heard Cachao’s music for the first time in 1970, I have been impressed by his genius,” recalled Andy Garcia, who makes his directorial debut in the feature-length documentary “Cachao . . . Como su ritmo no hay otro” (“Like His Rhythm There Is No Other”). The film chronicles the Cachao Mambo & Descarga concert held in Miami last July. Fausto Sanchez, president of the Miami-based Sanchez & Levitan agency, who co-produced the movie with Garcia, told Nuestro Tiempo that he and Garcia may collaborate in the future. “It would be nice to preserve some of the other icons that we have in Cuban music. People perhaps like Cachao, who have been excluded from the archives of Cuban history.” In 1938, with his brother Orestes, Israel (Cachao) Lopez, composer and bassist, developed the original mambo music. Cachao is now 74 years old. “The film is our way of paying him back for the endless hours of pleasure his music has given to us and millions of people in the world,” Garcia said.

It looks like the Nosotros Golden Eagle Awards will not take place this year. For the past 22 years, the annual event has recognized achievements by Latinos in entertainment. The Nosotros organization has long been plagued by internal problems and the most recent feuding has led the awards show sponsors to pull out. Coincidentally, it appears that the future of the Desi Awards, which also honor Latino achievements, is in doubt as well.

“It has a good message, especially in the healing of the city,” said Taylor Negron about “Gangster Planet,” which opened earlier this month at the World Theater in Hollywood. Negron wrote and stars in the play, which he describes as “a domestic comedy set in a house in the Hollywood Hills, as a family watches last year’s riots and sees their life collapse as the city collapses.” A frequent guest on “The Tonight Show,” the Los Angeles-born actor and comedian, who is of Puerto Rican descent, most recently appeared on “Civil Wars” and “Seinfeld.” Besides directing short films for MTV, he is special correspondent for the E! Entertainment Network.

Calling Cesar Chavez “an example for those who live and fight for a better life in the United States,” filmmaker Luis Valdez said he hopes to make a movie on the life of the late labor leader.

Entertainer-turned-author Abbe Lane, a former wife of the late orchestra leader Xavier Cugat, may be Broadway bound. Although she had proposed her fictionalized autobiography with the title “A Latin From Manhattan,” Warner Books has published it as “But Where Is Love?” It looks like Lane may get to play her own mother in the musical stage version.