The Mexican comedian Leopoldo Roberto García Peláez Benítez, better known as
Polo Polo,
died this Monday at the age of 78, his son, Paul García Peláez, reported during a live Mexican television program.
"He passed away at 5:00 in the morning," the communicator Patricia Chapoy reported during the Ventaneando program on TV Azteza, to which the comedian's son was linked to confirm the news.
He suffered from senile dementia and his cause of death was natural, his son said.
Polo Polo
retired from the stage in 2016, after more than four decades of experience, without offering any further explanation.
However, a year later he revealed in the media that he suffered from Alzheimer's.
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Leopoldo Roberto García Peláez BenítezMilenio
The community of comedians in Mexico regretted the departure of who was considered a master of albures, a popular genre in Mexico of jokes with double meanings and sexual connotations.
"The king has died, the world has become a less funny place and with less magic. Nobody will ever equal the master Polo Polo RIP. A red marlboro and a 'cognaquito' to the health of the best of all time," tweeted the Mexican comedian Franco Escamilla.
“How lucky to have shared so much life together.
We will always miss you.
A round of applause for the great Polo Polo,” tweeted Mexican television personality Xavier López Chabelo, a longtime friend of the Guanajuatense comedian.
Polo Polo
is remembered
for his mischievous humor, which often relied on witty anecdotal references to sexual themes and lengthy monologues.
But also for repeating macho tropes and prejudices in his comic elaborations.
He recorded his first album live with the Musart label, titled
El viaje a España
at the end of the 1980s. Despite the lack of radio airplay (due to the explicit content of the material), the album sold more than 100,000 copies.
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In the 1990s, his popularity grew in Mexico and the United States, where he performed in arenas in Hollywood and Las Vegas on multiple occasions.
This period of success and great activity,
Polo Polo
managed to set the record for the longest show, which remains valid to date.
He was born in 1944 in León, Guanajuato, where he worked in a family shoe business before turning to comedy in the nightclubs of Mexico City.
He participated in various television shows, plays, and founded the
El Cuevón
comedy club in Mexico City
.
The comedian's relatives have not elaborated on the funeral that will take place.