Alvarez Guedes just made his worst joke: he died …
The humor, the relaxation, the Cuban choteo are mourning. At 86, at his home in Kendall, a suburb of Miami, Guillermo Alvarez Guedes died surrounded by his family. He never had any use for the Guillermo to be recognized …
When doing the history of Cuban humor, Alvarez Guedes will have a guaranteed space, among other reasons, because he had a grace to make jokes that if told by others will be disgusting, but told by him it was impossible not to laugh. Even in years when we had to listen to him in an almost clandestine way, in cassettes copied to infinity, in worn-out by use and abuse tapes, that we parched together with nail polish.
A typical Cuban joker, even without seeing him you felt in those recordings the complicity of who makes stories of relaxation at a meeting of friends, as the most natural thing in the world. It looks like it was something genetic, because her sister Eloisa was also a storyteller with an unsurpassed comic talent.
While listening to him since I have come to reason, I came to put a face to Alvarez Guedes just five years ago, when I typed his name on YouTube and I saw some sketches, although I think his forte was the colloquial face to face with his audience. Maybe he was a sort of precursor to “stand up comedy” in Cuba, and had the merit of being liked on both sides, although some feel uncomfortable, even guilty, because even his political jokes caused laughter.
Alvarez Guedes was born in 1927 in the town of Union de Reyes, Matanzas, where he began his acting career on the radio until the late 1940s. Then he went to television, thanks to producer and animator Gaspar Pumarejo, and for his charisma and grace he highlighted in skits and musicals, cabaret shows, and made a memorable tandem with Rita Montaner, the One, both on radio and in theater and television.
But apart from his intense acting career, in 1949 he created the Gem Records label, which launched essentials as Rolando Laserie, Celeste Mendoza or Elena Burke. In 1953 he made the musical El Solar, in the Montmartre cabaret, with Beny Moré, Olga Guillot and Carlos Pous, and choreography by Alberto Alonso. For his seal also passed Chico O’Farrill and Bebo Valdés.
Among his idols he said there were Leopoldo Fernandez, known for his characters Trespatines and pototo, Alberto Garrido and Enrique Arredondo, remembered for his Bernabe. He also kept good memories of the showman Germán Pinelli, and the King of Rhythm, Beny Moré, who worked hard and whose music he never tired of listening.
On October 23, 1960 he left Cuba in the same plane that Celia Cruz, direct to New York. He then moved to San Juan, Puerto Rico, where he had major role in the birth of the Gran Combo and the launch of singers Danny Rivera and Luisa Maria Guell. He never wanted to return to Cuba.
In total he recorded 32 albums of jokes, wrote the novel Cadillac 59 (2000), appeared in films like “Hail psychiatrist” (1966) and “That all remains among Cubans” (2008), and managed full memorable one-man shows. Until 2011, he was the star of the radio magazine “Here’s Alvarez Guedes”.
Rest in peace Alvarez Guedes. And let people to prepare for the Hereafter to die again: of laughter…
