Guillermo Álvarez Guedes

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Guillermo Álvarez Guedes (born June 8, 1927 in Unión de Reyes , Matanzas province , † July 30, 2013 in Kendall , Florida ) was a Cuban-American comedian who lived in exile since 1960 and among Cuban Americans and his compatriots in Cuba was also known throughout the Spanish-speaking world under his surname Álvarez Guedes for his humor.

Life

Youth and early career in Cuba

Guillermo Álvarez Guedes grew up as the second youngest of seven children of the married couple Conrado Simeón Álvarez Hernández and Rosa Guedes Fernández in the village of Unión de Reyes, 140 kilometers east of Havana. He first appeared as an actor on a village stage when he was 5 years old. At the age of 13 he left home to join a traveling circus and at 14 he jumped in as a singer in a band. In 1946 he went to New York and worked as an illegal casual laborer until the immigration authorities deported him to Cuba in 1949. In Havana , he began his comic career on radio at the age of 22. He also appeared on theater stages and in entertainment clubs, as a speaker in radio plays and as an actor (from 1951 on television and from 1953 on the big screen). He became known nationwide in the regular role of a drunk in the regular entertainment program Cabaret Regalías (later continued as Casino de la Alegría ) as one of the first television comedians in Cuba. In Havana's lively music and cultural scene, he had joint events with music stars such as Beny Moré , Olga Guillot and Rosita Fornés . Together with the singing and acting star Rita Montaner , he conducted the weekly television entertainment show Rita y Willy for a year and a half .

exile

When Fidel Castro established a new dictatorship in Cuba from 1959 after the expulsion of the dictator Fulgencio Batista , Álvarez Guedes went into exile in October 1960, like hundreds of thousands of other Cubans - he happened to take the last flight from home with the prominent singer Celia Cruz , who like him never returned to Cuba. After initially living in Puerto Rico and New York, he finally settled permanently in Miami , interrupted by a stay of several years in Madrid in the early 1970s. For over five decades he was one of the most successful entertainers in Cuban exile .

International success as a comedian

He performed in the USA, Spain and various Latin American countries and released a total of 32 records from 1973. Among other things, he had a sold out appearance in 1983 at Carnegie Hall in New York. He has also worked in feature films and television productions, and has published books and DVDs. At the end of the 1980s he returned to television for the first time since leaving Cuba with his own show on the Hispanic American broadcaster Univision . At a radio station in South Florida he had his regular three-hour radio show Aquí está Álvarez Guedes for 15 years until 2011 , in which he combined jokes, music and political commentary.

Typical humor

His often crude jokes and anecdotes reached a wide audience and mainly related to everyday stories and typical Cuban characteristics and habits. His humor, presented primarily in the form of stand-up comedy , was in the Cuban tradition of the “ choteo ”, an ironic (and self- deprecating ) attitude that particularly includes disrespect for political and religious authorities as well as violations of conventions of good behavior. His trademark was the often used "¡ño!" - a vulgar expression common in Cuban Spanish, which he shortened to a single syllable .

Activity as a music producer

Parallel to his work as a comedian, he worked as a music producer and publisher from 1954, working with important artists of the Cuban and Caribbean music scene, including Bebo Valdés , Chico O'Farrill and La Lupe . Together with his brother Rafael and the pianist Ernesto Duarte, he founded the record label "Producciones Gema" in early 1957 , which they later rebuilt in exile as "Gema Records". Gema specialized in popular Latin American music and helped artists such as Willy Chirino and El Gran Combo de Puerto Rico to international success. The company later served Álvarez Guedes to distribute his own humor records.

Political position

He represented a clearly negative stance against the dictatorial regime of the brothers Fidel and Raúl Castro , which among other things led him to support the family of the opposition Cuban writer Raúl Rivero after he was arrested in the wave of arrests of the " Black Spring " in 2003 and become one Was sentenced to 20 years in prison. Despite his prominence in Cuba in the 1950s and although his jokes in the form of records, tapes and videos circulated covertly among the Cuban population of the island even during his exile, Álvarez Guedes remained unmentioned in the most important government-controlled Cuban mass media even after his death . His older sister Eloísa (1916–1993) had stayed in Cuba after the revolution, had successfully continued her acting career there and, as a staunch communist, was awarded a national culture prize by the State Council .

Guillermo Álvarez Guedes died at the age of 86 after a short illness.

Book publications (selection)

  • De la vida, de la muerte, y otras mierdas más. 1981 (Spanish)
  • El día que ... cayó Fidel Castro. 1990 (Spanish)
  • Malas palabras, buenas palabras, y otras palabras. 1990 (Spanish)
  • Cadillac 59th (novel), Athena Press, 2001 (Spanish)

Filmography

  • 1952: Yo soy el hombre (Cuba)
  • 1953: San Rifle en La Habana (Cuba)
  • 1957: The Big Boodle (USA)
  • 1966: Dios te salve, psiquiatra (USA)
  • 1976: A mí qué me importa que explote Miami (Spain)
  • 1990: La chica del alacrán de oro (Mexico)
  • 1993: Que todo quede entre cubanos (USA)

literature

  • Albert Sergio Laguna: 'Aquí Está Alvarez Guedes': Cuban choteo and the politics of play. in: Latino Studies Vol. 8 (2010), pp. 509–531 (English)
  • Gustavo Pérez Firmat: Riddles of the Sphincter: Another Look at the Cuban Choteo. in: Diacritics Vol. 14, No. 4, (Winter, 1984), pp. 67-77 (English)
  • ders .: Literature and Liminality: Festive Readings in the Hispanic Tradition. Duke University Press, Durham 1986 (English)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Muere el humorista cubano Álvarez Guedes ( Memento from August 12, 2013 in the Internet Archive ), in: La Jiribilla from August 1, 2013 (Spanish)
  2. ↑ a b c d Iván García Quintero: Álvarez Guedes: que todo quede entre cubanos , in: Martí Noticias from August 1, 2013 (Spanish)
  3. ↑ a b Lissette Corsa: Cuba's Jackie Mason , in: Miami New Times of June 7, 2001 (English)
  4. ↑ a b c d e Armando López: Alvarez Guedes: A chiste limpio , in: El Nuevo Herald of August 4, 2013 (Spanish)
  5. ↑ Alberto Sánchez: La tarea pendiente que dejó Alvarez Guedes ( Memento from August 6, 2013 in the web archive archive.today ), in: El Nuevo Herald from August 5, 2013 (Spanish)
  6. ↑ a b Guillermo Alvarez Guedes, famed Cuban comic, dies ( Memento from August 5, 2013 in the web archive archive.today ), in: Miami Herald from July 30, 2013 (English)
  7. ↑ a b Murió en Miami el humorista cubano Álvarez Guedes , in: BBC Mundo of July 30, 2013 (Spanish)
  8. ↑ Rolando Cartaya: El día que Álvarez Guedes le ganó al G-2 , in: Martí Noticias of August 3, 2013 (Spanish)
  9. ↑ Arturo Arias-Polo: Fallció Álvarez Guedes, el hombre de la risa eterna ( Memento from August 5, 2013 in the web archive archive.today ), in: El Nuevo Herald from July 31, 2013 (Spanish)
  10. ↑ Gustavo Pérez Firmat: Riddles of the sphincter: Another Look at the Cuban choteo. in: Diacritics Vol. 14, No. 4, (Winter, 1984), pp. 67-77 (English)
  11. ↑ Joe Cardona: Comedian Alvarez Guedes' made us laugh in exile's painful terrain ( Memento from August 5, 2013 in the web archive archive.today ), in: Miami Herald from August 2, 2013 (English)
  12. ↑ Cornelius Schlicke: Sound recording industry and the mediation of live music in Cuba: Popular music in the context of economic forms of organization and cultural-political ideologies. P. 230, Lit Verlag, Berlin 2007
  13. ↑ Muere Guillermo Álvarez Guedes, el más grande de los comediantes cubanos , in: Diario de Cuba of July 30, 2013 (Spanish)
  14. ^ Alfredo Prieto: Habana-Miami: puentes sobre aguas turbulentas , (PDF) p. 97 u. 113, Conference Lecture, New York 2011 (Spanish)
  15. ↑ Cuba ignora muerte de su mayor humorista ( Memento from August 5, 2013 in the Internet Archive ), in: Voz de América from July 31, 2013 (Spanish)
  16. ↑ Eloísa Álvarez Guedes , in the official Cuban online encyclopedia EcuRed (Spanish)
personal data
SURNAME Álvarez Guedes, Guillermo
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Cuban-American comedian and music producer
DATE OF BIRTH June 8, 1927
PLACE OF BIRTH Unión de Reyes , Matanzas Province
DATE OF DEATH July 30, 2013
Place of death Kendall , Florida