Quico, from El Chavo, turns 80: his illness and love with Doña Florinda

Carlos Villagranthe actor who played Quico in The childthe character of Roberto Gomez Bolaños, turns 80 today. Her present is a little different than what she had back when the Mexican TV show made a splash here in Argentina and throughout the Spanish-speaking world.

In November last year, a Mexican journalist reported that Villagrán, a big boy with chubby cheeks, had prostate cancer. The actor himself confirmed that he had undergone surgery and that “thank God” the operation was a success.

A curiosity: he didn’t write the will, out of superstition…

“I’m afraid to make a will,” he said at the time. “According to Murphy’s theory, as soon as you say one thing, everything changes. So I keep thinking about it a little more.”

“Don’t worry and don’t be afraid, it happened a long time ago and I never announced it,” he wrote in the caption of the post published on Instagram.

A love story with Doña Florinda

Carlos Villagran e Florinda Meza They were two key pieces of El Chavo del 8, but we already know that not everything was rosy: in those years of the 70s, Quico and Doña Florinda lived a love story that did not end in the best way.

“There was a time when we were friends, close friends, without becoming adults,” Villagrán said. “But the fact that she wanted to move on from friends to something else was very strong, but I couldn’t stand it.” Finally, after many doubts about her relationship with Meza, she declared that there were indications of a love story with the person who played Doña Florinda in the legendary Mexican series. In this regard, you said that Meza (before marrying Gómez Bolaños) tried to win him over when she once asked him to accompany her to look for her car in a repair shop and then invited him for a drink.

“We went for a drink and it developed into something a little more intimate than being friends, but it didn’t go any further, I didn’t like it,” he said. At that time Quico was married, so he asked the interpreter and creator of Chavo for advice. “I also asked Chespirito for help, I told him, ‘Look, brother, this thing is like this.’ And he said, ‘You make a terrible, absolute cut.’”

It is known that Florinda Meza finally began to frequent Gómez Bolaños: “That time, I breathed and saw that the air was pure, white, strong, cold, delicious. Even though she got sick and went to the infirmary. Roberto told me to stay in the my position… After that many things happened and she became his partner.

The love story between Florinda and Roberto was very controversial. She was 22 years old and Bolaños was 42 at the time: he was married to Graciela Fernández and had six children.

“It was a scandal, they were all against us. Many were angry with me, they criticized me, he suffered for it, they told me that I was a climber, that I did it to climb, that I was a husband thief and that this wouldn’t even last a year,” Meza said in an interview. Although it was a scandal, they were together for more than 40 years, got married, but had no children.

The controversial Quico commercial

Villagrán appeared at a controversial location at the US Embassy in Mexico. His goal was to discourage illegal border crossings and the video sparked controversy online.

In the commercial, which lasted less than a minute, he asks his fellow countrymen not to enter the United States illegally.

“Hi guys, first of all shut up, shut up, shut up, you’re making me despair! I have one very important thing to tell you, don’t cross the US border, because your father, your mother, your uncle, the dog, the cat, the parakeet, all of them could be in danger, it’s better to cross legally. If you do it, I sympathize with you,” said Villagrán dressed as his mythical character.