Álvarez Guedes

The roots of Alvarez Guedes’ humor are to be found in a Cuban music hall tradition known as teatro bufo, where ethnic types drawn from the Havana barrios acted out comedy skits that were Creole versions of comic theater from the 16th and 17th century Spanish traditions. According to the EnCaribe web page, Alvarez Guedes represented both el gallego—– a handlebar-moustached Spanish immigrant, whose physical appearance was that of Alvarez Guedes himself — and el negrito, a street-smart Afro-Cuban who relentlessly mocks el gallego. And his attitude is rooted in choteo, a disregard for any seriousness that Cuban intellectual life identifies as a major component of the island’s culture.

Alvarez Guedes died on 30 July 2013 at his home in the Kendall neighborhood of Miami.

“My best memories of Cuba make me sad,” he told El Nuevo Herald in 2007. “Cuba is a country that no longer exists, even if I was born there.”

During the 1970s and 1980s, Álvarez Guedes dedicated himself to recording comedy albums and writing comedy books. He routinely expressed his desire for Cuba to return to the way it used to be; such was the occasion when he made one of his famous jokes, involving a TWA flight he supposedly took between Havana and Miami. That route was actually flown by TWA, Pan Am and Cubana before Fidel Castro's rise to power.

During that decade, the comic also began a cinematic career that would lead to roles in more than 14 movies and the production of three. However, his most disseminated medium was the recorded spoken word. In 1960, Alvarez Guedes was forced into exile, landing first in New York City then San Juan, Puerto Rico, where he eventually made his first comedy album in 1973, leading to thirty-plus albums over the years. Through the albums, he became an international star of Spanish-language comedy before settling in Miami. Alvarez Guedes and his brother Rafael, together with composer/band leader Ernesto Duarte Brito, founded Gema Records, the company that launched the international careers of "El Gran Combo", a Puerto Rican Salsa music group. A friendship united Guedes with the orchestra's director, Rafael Ithier. The company also launched the careers of Elena Burke and Rolando Laserie, among others.

Alvarez Guedes was born in Unión de Reyes, Matanzas, a town from where, according to a popular song, hails a legendary and probably fictional rumba king called Malanga. His showbiz career began in his hometown. There, since childhood, he would entertain crowds at parties and fairs by dancing and singing. It was natural that he would travel to Havana, not just the country’s capital but a known entertainment center. In Havana, he worked in theaters and radio shows. But it was in the new medium of television, of which Cuba was the Latin American pioneer, where he made his mark. In a city known for its nightclub scene, Alvarez Guedes appeared in popular television shows that were set in bars and clubs in the role of el borracho, the drunkard, where he mixed linguistic humor with a physical comic style reminiscent of American silent movie stars like Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton. He worked in this medium, as well as the booming club world of 1950s Havana, where he shared billing with such stars as Beny Moré, Olga Guillot and Rita Montaner.

Guillermo Álvarez Guedes (8 June 1927 – 30 July 2013) was a Cuban comedian, actor, writer & businessman. He was better known across Latin America as Álvarez Guedes.