Elín Ortiz (December 14, 1934 – June 12, 2016) was a Puerto Rican actor, comedian and producer. He died on June 12, 2016, primarily due to Alzheimer's Disease.
Early years
Elín Ortiz graduated from
Ponce High School
The Ponce High School is public educational institution in Ponce, Puerto Rico, offering grades nine through twelve. The school's main building is a historic structure located on Cristina Street, in the Ponce Historic Zone. From its beginning t ...
Walter Mercado
Walter Mercado Salinas (March 9, 1931 – November 2, 2019), also known by his stage name Shanti Ananda, was a Puerto Rican astrologer, actor, dancer, and writer, best known as a television personality for his shows as an astrologer. His astro ...
, Adela Villamil,
Jacobo Morales
Jacobo Morales (born 12 November 1934) is a Puerto Rican actor, poet, writer, playwright, filmmaker, and author born in Puerto Rico.WIPR, the government-operated radio and television stations, where he also worked as writer and director.
On stage, Ortiz was considered among the most versatile actors of his generation, due to his talent for both, drama and comedy. With Morales,
Myrna Vázquez
Myrna Vázquez (1935-1975) was a Puerto Rican screen, stage, radio, and television actress. She later became an influential community activist in Boston's South End.
Early life and career
She was born in Cidra, Puerto Rico, in 1935, one of se ...
, Marcos Betancourt and Alicia Moreda, Ortiz was a founder of El Cemi Theater Company.
In the 1960s Ortiz was a star in many of the programs produced for Telemundo by
Paquito Cordero
Paquito Cordero (October 16, 1932 – June 30, 2009) was a Puerto Rican comedian and music and television producer. He is considered a pioneer of Puerto Rican television.
Early years
Cordero (birth name: Francisco Cordero Baez) was born to ...
on a weekly basis, especially 'La Taberna India', in which he played Reliquia, an ancient (although Ortiz was in his 20s) small-town smart aleck lawyer who victimized the everyday countryman ( jibaro) played by Adalberto Rodriguez ( Machuchal) through money-making schemes created by Reliquia's corrupt mind. The show was a very popular one for more than a decade.
In the early 1970s, Ortiz started the production of his own TV shows at Telemundo, among them the first
Astrology
Astrology is a range of Divination, divinatory practices, recognized as pseudoscientific since the 18th century, that propose that information about human affairs and terrestrial events may be discerned by studying the apparent positions ...
-related program starring Walter Mercado and segments designed to showcase the talents of dancing/singing bombshell Iris Chacon, who later became his second wife. Years later, after marrying Charytin Goyco, he produced and co-starred with her in 'Mi Dulce Charytin' a weekly long running variety show which combined music and comedy, produced at
WAPA-TV
WAPA-TV (channel 4) is a Spanish-language independent television station in San Juan, Puerto Rico. It is the flagship and namesake station of Guaynabo-based WAPA Media Group.
WAPA-TV maintains studio facilities on Luis Vigoreaux Avenue ...
. Ortiz was always the writer, director and visionary mastermind of his productions. date=July 2020
One of Ortiz's works, ''Las Rosas Blancas'', a made-for-TV film fantasy/drama musical, starring Charytin, Luis Antonio Cosme, Miguel Angel Alvarez and Ortiz himself, received the prestigious
George Foster Peabody Award
The George Foster Peabody Awards (or simply Peabody Awards or the Peabodys) program, named for the American businessman and philanthropist George Peabody, honor what are described as the most powerful, enlightening, and invigorating stories in ...
in 1975, after being selected along with 26 other radio and/or TV productions from more than 1,000 entries. date=July 2020
In 1985, he returned to WAPA-TV as a comedian in a show sponsored by
Budweiser
Budweiser () is an American-style pale lager, a brand of Belgian company AB InBev. Introduced in 1876 by Carl Conrad & Co. of St. Louis, Missouri, Budweiser has become a large selling beer company in the United States. Budweiser is a filte ...
, known as ''La Taverna Budweiser'', alongside Machuchal, reprising the same type of program they made two decades before in Telemundo. During that time Ortiz developed programs of political satire such as ''Qué Pueblito'', ''El Pueblito Nius'', ''Ay Bendito, que Pueblito !'' and ''El Pueblito Contra Ataca'' in which he played another old man character, Cheito Boogaloo, who denounced corruption while making fun of political matters. He also produced the very popular ''Barrio 4 Calles'' starring Leopoldo 'Pucho' Fernandez and Miguel Angel Alvarez, as well as the children's comedy series '' Que Angelitos'', starring his son Shalim.
Personal life
Ortiz's first marriage was to Rosalinda Alonso, a lady not related to the artistic world with whom he had two daughters. Unfortunately, while Alonso was pregnant with their second daughter, Ortiz contracted measles which in turn he gave to his wife and unborn child. His second daughter lived to her teens. His first daughter died in her 20s due to complications following treatment for lupus. Following a divorce he was briefly married to dancer/singer
Iris Chacón
Iris Belia Chacón Tapia (born March 7, 1950) is a Puerto Rican dancer, singer, actress, and entertainer.
Known as "La Bomba de Puerto Rico" and "La Vedette de América," Chacón is a prominent figure in Latin America, the United States, Europe ...
during the early 1970s. In 1978, he married singer/composer Charytín, a
Dominican Republic
The Dominican Republic is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles of the Caribbean Sea in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean. It shares a Maritime boundary, maritime border with Puerto Rico to the east and ...
native who had lived in Puerto Rico for many years. In 1979, they had their first son,
Shalim
Shalim (Šalām, Shalem, ) is a god in Canaanite religion, mentioned in inscriptions found in Ugarit (now Ras Shamra, Syria).Golan, 2003, p. 82. "The name of the Canaanite deity of the setting sun Salim, or Salem, ..The names Shahar_(god).ht ...
. They relocated in
Miami, Florida
Miami is a East Coast of the United States, coastal city in the U.S. state of Florida and the county seat of Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade County in South Florida. It is the core of the Miami metropolitan area, which, with a populat ...
during the late 1980s and in 1990 their twins, Sharinna and Alexander were born. Ortiz withdrew from acting to manage his wife's career and later retired completely to spend more time with his family. His son Shalim has gone on to become an international singing star and a spokesman for the
American Diabetes Association
The American Diabetes Association (ADA) is a United States-based nonprofit that seeks to educate the public about diabetes and to help those affected by it through funding research to manage, cure and prevent diabetes, including type 1 diabetes ...
. Ortiz suffered from Diabetes during his last years.
Alzheimer's disease
Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative disease and the cause of 60–70% of cases of dementia. The most common early symptom is difficulty in remembering recent events. As the disease advances, symptoms can include problems wit ...
. On June 13, 2016, son Shalim announced through the web that his father had died the day before. He was 81.