Jorge Porcel, 69; Argentine Comedian, Actor, TV Show Host
Jorge Porcel, 69, an Argentine comedian and television host known across Latin America for his portly size and bawdy humor, died Tuesday at a hospital in Miami from complications of gallbladder surgery.
Porcel’s baby face and trademark leer were a staple of Spanish-language television throughout the world in the variety show “To Bed With Porcel.” In the United States, he was seen on the Telemundo network.
The comedian, born in 1936 in Buenos Aires, was affectionately known as “El Gordo Porcel” or “El Gordo de America,” meaning Latin America’s fat man.
His film career, which included 50 movies, began in 1962 with “Zaniness in Mar del Plata” and ended in 1993 with a cameo in the Al Pacino film “Carlito’s Way.” In most of the movies he made in Argentina in the 1980s, he was partnered with another well-known comedian, Alberto Olmedo, who died in 1988.
Suffering from the onset of Parkinson’s disease, Porcel became a born-again Christian in 1995 and stopped working in television. He last visited Argentina in 1999, when he addressed his fans as a Pentecostal preacher.
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