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José Miguel Agrelot — Don Cholito
Date of birth
Date of death
January 28, 2004 (natural causes)
Education
University of Puerto Rico Bachelor's degree in Arts.
Occupation
Radio show host and comedian.
Nicknames
Don Cholito
The man of the 1,000 voices
Remarks
Held a Guinness World Record for the longest running still active radio show.
Giuseppe Michel Agrelot (April 21, 1927 – January 28, 2004) was a Puerto Rican radio and television show host and a comedian better known as José Miguel Agrelot or Don Cholito. His parents gave him an Italian name to honor his grandmother, who was Italian.
Biography
Agrelot started working on radio stations when he was 14. At that time, he was employed by don Tomas Muniz, who was the father of Tommy Muniz. That was the period when he started playing his now classic character of Torito. Agrelot worked on a show named El Colegio de la Alegria (The School of Joy). Soon after, he moved himself and his Torito character to rival radio station WKAQ-FM, where he starred alongside Luis Vigoreaux in a show named Torito & Company.
Agrelot's show with Vigoreaux had wild success, and they toured most United States cities with a large Latin American population, bringing their show to theaters all over the states. Torito returned to El Colegio de la Alegria when that show made its transition to television.
Agrelot also acted in shows in Spain, Mexico and Argentina. He had extended tours of the Dominican Republic and Venezuela. In 1969, he recorded a joke album with one of the most important Latin American record labels of the time, Velvet Records. The album's title was El Sabor de la Vida (The Flavor of Life).
Apart from interventions in a few commercials, Agrelot's credits in Puerto Rican TV included:
- El Colegio de la Alegria (The School of Joy)
- El Profesor Colgate
- La Criada Malcriada (The Nasty Maid)
- El Especial de Corona (The Corona Special)
- Desafiando a los Genios (Challenging The Geniuses)
- Haciendo Historia (Making History)
- El Show del Mediodia (The Midday show, as Don Cholito, another legendary character of his)
- Parece Increible (It Seems Incredible)
- Ja ja, Ji ji, Jo jo con Agrelot
Agrelot has an area of the theme park Parque De Las Ciencias in Bayamon named after his Torito character. La Ciudad de Torito, or Torito's City was inaugurated in 1988. In 2003, his radio show, Alegre Despertar (Joyful Awakening), held the world's record for the longest running still active radio show, running non-stop for 53 years (Rambling With Gambling ran on New York's WOR Radio for 75 years but ceased in 2000). Thus made Agrelot the second person from Puerto Rico, after Wilfredo Benitez, to join the Guinness Book of World Records.
This avid autograph signer had also written joke books and posed in a ring with Muhammad Ali for the cover of one of his publications. He was also an avid sports fan, particularly of the Criollos de Caguas baseball team. As a matter of a fact, although people named José are commonly nicknamed Cheo, it was after he began calling baseball player Jose Cruz Cheo Cruz on tv, that the general public began to know Cruz as Cheo Cruz. Agrelot and Cruz sustained a friendship until Agrelot died. The Colesium of Puerto Rico was renamed the Jose Miguel Agrelot Coliseum (Coliseo de Puerto Rico Jose Miguel Agrelot) in his honor. shortly before he died.
External link
- Zonai.com Biographies: José Miguel Agrelot (http://zonai.com/promociones/biografias/0401/agrelot.asp) (in Spanish)
References
- EFE. Exponen restos de Agrelot en funeraria Buxeda. San Juan, Puerto Rico: El Nuevo Día. January 29, 2004.