He made his debut on the radio in 1949 and at 83 he returned to the air: Miguel Jordán, the historian Maipo

There wasn’t a photo that day, but he took it upon himself to scan the moment so it never got deleted. Almanac in 1949. The “severe” Armando Discépolo, playwright and director of Radio El Mundo, gave him a try and welcomed him into the cast of the station’s children. Miguelito was 10 years old and did not take the dimension of the historical fact: he had just entered the powerful universe of radio theater, since then I would have done it “a superpower”, to manipulate the mood of the masses.

Twenty-nine years had passed since the first national broadcast, on the terrace of the Coliseo Theater, television still did not exist in Argentina, and Miguel Jordán, a resident of Colegiales, frequented the corridors of that “ship” because his father, a notary, had a friend at inside the media giant. It was not strange that the voice of stars like the Spanish Amalia Sánchez Ariño has passed to the dream team of The Perez Garcia to the orchestras of Glostora Tango Club.

The sound of the wind “was obtained with X-rays”, the still steps “with wood on the ground” … Its history remains of that dull sound world. Jordán is like a lost encyclopedic dictionary of the Argentine spectacleamong those buried surnames that built the dial.

“Discépolo was serious, severe, but you scratched him a little and his shell fell off, he was affectionate. He had to wear that ugly uniform to handle a radio. I remember Osvaldo Pacheco was then the telephone operator and Alberto Migré wrote the tandas “, he is moved on that journey of regression of seven decades.

“I listened to The Lightning, by Jaime Font Saravia, I went upstairs and found myself in the studio with The 4 greats of good humor. Or see rows of blocks waiting to attend the live cycle of Amelia Bence and Alberto Closas “, dissects the memory.” In my first role as an actor I had to be the grandson of Susy Kent and Mario De Rosa. He paid himself fortnightly. Dad agreed to let me work, but only during the winter and summer holidays. “

Born on 7 July 1939 at the Rivadavia hospital, an only child of French Basque blood, he was barely a meter tall when he was already a regular spectator of large productions. His maternal grandfather, Don Alfredo, was in charge of educating him in the theatrical dress, long before he came of age, Miguel had already been a few meters away from characters like Miguel de Molina.

A student at O’Higgins on Lacroze Street, she discovers her vocation as if for fun, until she arrives at the Hipólito Vieytes high school and desire becomes a necessity. “It was Beatriz Taibo who took me to do my first theatrical audition at the Odeón and that was football, “he comments.

“I was 14 or 15 and I was part of it Madam Minister, with Gloria Guzman. When I debuted, my parents were in the audience. After the show they invited me to eat in the pizzeria. Nobody said anything, hush until dad gave me some kind of baptism: ‘You’re a good actor, son, but you have to study.’ That’s how I grew up Hedy Crilla, Agustin Alezzo, Humberto Serrano“.

Hedy, the Austrian drama teacher in exile in Buenos Aires, “was strict, outspoken and, if she didn’t think you could be an actor, she didn’t scruple to brutally tell you to try other areas of the theater, as a machinist or prompter”, evokes. “I spent two years with her and I went from Shakespeare to the magazine, from San Martín to Maipo without problems”.

In Maipo he came to work alongside gods of the feather such as Nélida Lobato and the sisters Ethel and Gogó Rojo. While the goddesses descended the stairs as if floating, Jordán indulged them, in a pure skit together with capocomicos like Alfredo Barbieri or Don Pelele. With Jorge Porcel and Alberto Olmedo he shared more than tables, several films that founded that picaresque silver genre that is now being questioned. The duo took him to share the set with Susana Giménez and Moria Casán.

“Once a week Olmedo invited me and César Bertrand to dinner. El Negro was incredibly generous. Every summer he went to Europe and suddenly a gift from outside appeared in your dressing room, but he was so shy he didn’t brag . A gentleman “.

-Have you ever been forced to work in another field due to lack of work?

-Once the finances weren’t good, I was part of the San Martín Theater and did polls in the mornings. But for that alone, I was privileged. I remember that I was in San Martín when the proposal came from Maipo, from the entrepreneur Alberto González, brother of Zully Moreno.

– That passage was not a contradiction for you, how did that turning point happen?

– One day I come home and my mother says to me: “A certain Iglesias called you”. They quote me, I go, I paid in installments for my first apartment. The employer wanted to hire me for three months and I lied there. “But no! At San Martín I earn enough to sign for three months at Maipo”, I took a risk, even if the truth was that at San Martín I was paid badly and late. And so he hired me all year. Maipo allowed me to finish paying for the house. Then I went back to the San Martin. It was all work. After all.

-He is one of the most experienced actors and, however, this does not translate into his level of presence in the media. Is it something you chose?

-No, I’ve never had a press officer, I’ve always kept a low profile, I didn’t go to cocktails, I wasn’t Figuretti. Maybe because I come from a simple and traditional family and that’s how I moved in life.

-How did you live the years of the dictatorship?

-I had to continue working, but with the fear of knowing that there were colleagues in danger. Suddenly they pulled you out of the car, touched you and laughed at you: “Art-tis-ta”. Fortunately in my case it didn’t happen to the majors, but it was a very sinister period.

Companion of forgotten giants like Olinda Bozán and Paulina Singerman, amidst comedies, dramas and sequins, the man with the surname that sounds like a biblical river seems determined not to forget every detail. 50 years have passed since that mythical film that required him to put “the loin” in a playful fall scene and shoot down the stairs, without double risk, the crowd.

Directed by Leopoldo Torre Nilsson, this production he found him face to face with Alfredo Alcón, a performance that earned him two awards, one, formal “, as best supporting actor in the opinion of film reporters and another,” the greatest “, the friendship with” Alfredo el great” .

remembered by popularity hits such as love has the face of a woman (He was Barbara Mujica’s boyfriend) or from his father Gaspar, the priest of a voice on the phone, also put the body to such TV hits Lopez’s children Y The Torterolo brothers“products of” more than 60 rating points whose actors forced traffic to stop. “He also dived into the most invisible Argentina, toured with singer and dancer Lola Flores, and even shared stages with Lola Membrives, in milestones such as Evil loved

MJ has no children, but his vocation has given him a family, Pepe Soriano, Mercedes Carreras, Rita Terranova, Osmar Nuñez and many colleagues who network. At this point, he says, dreams fly slowly, cautiously: “I dream now that they keep calling me at work. Don’t forget, like that recent call I had from Armando Bo’s nephew. I was Pope Francis in the Amazon series. President“.

All this series of experiences that Jordán shares on air every Friday from 16:00 to 18:00 in his program clinkfrom digital radio Zónica, a cycle in which he also has the pleasure of reissuing radio plays, together with Mariana Fernández. “The pandemic has arrived, I was very depressed, I cried, I did not sleep, I spoke to my doctor and this is how this beautiful project was born, the return to first love”.