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Jose Luis (El Puma) Rodriguez (born January 14, 1943 in Caracas, Venezuela) is a Venezuelan singer and actor who has recorded many international super hits and participated in a handful of telenovelas or soap operas.
Rodriguez surfaced in Venezuela in the late 1960's and early 1970's and was able to build a fan base there. He also participated in a famous commercial, along with his family during that time.
Rodriguez went to Puerto Rico, where he participated in Cristina Bazan along with Johanna Rosaly and young Adamari Lopez. While there, he got his nickname, El Puma.
Later, he also made the soap opera El Idolo there, alongside Cuban actress Marylin Pupo.
Rodriguez's main money revenue, however, was his singing career. His hits included Dueno De Nada, Pavo Real and Agarrense De Las Manos. With Pavo Real, he caused a controversy at the 1982 contest of Miss Universe. The contest was being held in Atlanta, a Southern American city, and Pavo Real is a song about a mixed races matrimony. This didn't sit well with the organizers of the event.
Rodriguez was married until well into the 1980's with actress Lila Morillo, with whom he procreated 2 daughters. One of them, Liliana Morillo, is a famous actress in Venezuela now.
Rodriguez is a newborn christian, and he loves meeting his fans and signing autographs for them.
He relocated to Miami after his divorce from Morillo and soon found another romantic interest, with whom he has a daughter too.
During September of 2004, Rodriguez received two personal life blows, both of them related to rape: early during that month, actor Mauricio Islas was imprisoned in Miami, for allegedly committing statutory rape with Rodriguez's youngest daughter, Genesis Rodriguez, while they both filmed a telenovela. Soon after, his former wife Liliana Morillo alleged that their second daughter, Liliana Rodriguez, had been raped at the age of six by a house worker of the Rodriguez-Murillo mansion in Venezuela.