Don Francisco (TV presenter)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Don Francisco with Chilean President Michelle Bachelet (2014)
Mario Kreutzberger and Teresa Muchnick (2010)

Don Francisco , actually Mario Luis Kreutzberger Blumenfeld , (born December 28, 1940 in Talca ) is a Chilean television presenter.

Life

Mario Kreutzberger's parents are German Jews who were persecuted and expelled from Germany during the National Socialist era . His father was a prisoner in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp . They managed to escape to Chile, where their father ran a small clothing store.

Mario Kreutzberger grew up bilingual, he has retained the German language and learned Spanish at school. He used the stage name Don Francisco as a teenager when he appeared as a comedian in a Jewish club in Santiago de Chile . His parents sent him to New York City to do an apprenticeship as a tailor , but returned two years later and wanted to work on television instead.

In 1962 he established the Saturday evening show Sábado Gigante on Chilean television , which was seen by 80 percent of Chileans in the mid-1980s. At the same time, he produced a second show from 1986 with a US station in Miami . Kreutzberger moved to Miami and only produced there. The show reached nearly 100 million viewers in America in its prime, including two million in the United States . In September 2015, the longest-lived of all television shows according to the Guinness Book of Records, ended.

The show, which was finally reduced to three hours of broadcasting time, also featured internationally known artists and top US politicians who asked Don Francisco to interview them in order to reach the Hispanics as voters. In 2012, Don Francisco hosted the Chilean version of Save the Million! , Atrapa los Millones . He also organized special programs to raise funds for disaster victims.

Kreutzberger has been married to Teresa Muchnick since 1963 and they have three children. His daughter Vivi Kreutzberger became an actress and also appeared in the family show.

Don Francisco has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (7018 Hollywood Blvd.).

Fonts

  • Quien soy? : telebiografia de Mario Kreutzberger . Cochrane: Editora de Publicaciones, 1987
  • Don Francisco, entre la espada y la TV: autobiografía . México: Grijalbo, 2001

literature

  • Arnhilda Badía: Hispanos en EE. UU: haciendo historia . Miami: Santillana, 2007
  • Juan Carlos Altamirano: Así, así se mueve don Francisco: un estudio sobre Sábados gigantes y la televisión . Santiago, Chile: ILET, 1987

Web links

Commons : Don Francisco  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Winand von Petersdorff: The giant of the family show resigns , in: FAZ , September 19, 2015, p. 22
  2. ^ Longest running TV variety show. In: Guinness Book of Records . September 19, 2015, accessed November 25, 2015 .
  3. ^ Don Francisco: The Hollywood Walk of Fame. In: hwof.com. June 8, 2001, Retrieved November 25, 2015 .
personal data
SURNAME Francisco, Don
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Kreutzberger Blumenfeld, Mario Luis (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Chilean television presenter
DATE OF BIRTH December 28, 1940
PLACE OF BIRTH Talca