OAS bids farewell to Cantinflas.

• Position: Mario Moreno "Cantinflas"

MARIO MORENO "Cantinflas", beloved Mexican actor and comic, died on April 20 in Mexico City. At the various acts of homage, mourners recalled the actor's essential character, that of a little man facing the perils of a big city with boundless wit and good humor.

With pants hanging off his hips, on the verge of falling down, and talking incessantly without saying anything, Cantinflas brilliantly interpreted the spectrum of humanity: drunk, lawyer, fireman, hairdresser, thief, politician, photographer and mailman. Although he is recognized by North American audiences almost entirely for his role in the 1956 film "Around the World in 80 Days", Mexicans remember him for films like "Cantinflas the Boxer," "Neither Blood Nor Sand," and "Patrol Car 777." In the 49 films he made between the 1930s and 1960s, Cantinflas captured the bewilderment of a country that was moving from the farms to the cities, thus making him one of the best social chroniclers of his times.

Born in 1911 in Mexico City, Mario Moreno was the sixth of thirteen brothers and sisters. The family was poor and the young Moreno helped out by working as a shoe-shiner, apprentice bull-fighter, taxi driver and boxer. At eighteen he was employed as a stage hand in a popular circus/theater. The late actor once explained how his career was launched. "One night the performer who announced the...