It is December 11, 1978. Mamá María is in the guard of the public hospital of Famaillá, a Tucumán town that in the seventies only has a little more than 12 thousand inhabitants. "It got complicated," a doctor warns her and worries her. What got complicated is pregnancy. You have to travel urgently to the capital of the province.
Now Mama Maria is the guard of the maternity of San Miguel de Tucumán. It is full of people and she is in a hurry: her son has the umbilical cord tangled in his neck and they fear that he may die by hanging. A cesarean section must be done.
The preparations and procedure go very well. Now we just need to know the sex. In these times, ultrasounds are not common and mother Maria will only find out the sex of her child when the midwife confirms it. "Miguel Antonio," she shouts and all is joy.
"Luckily there were cesarean sections because if we were not in the oven," says now, 44 years after that moment, Miguel Antonio Martín, better known as Officer Gordillo, sitting in the dressing room of the Apolo theater.
For this season, Officer Gordillo presents his show "Amigo de lo ajeno". Photo: Martín Bonetto
The boy became a star and is only half an hour away from making a room full of fans laugh with his humorous show Amigo de lo ajeno, with which he performs on weekends.
"My old lady says that on her wrist she wore a piece of paper, because being so crowded the motherhood, where all the babies of the capital of Tucumán are born and all those who have complications and bring them from the interior, she came with a piece of paper, a piolín and a cardboard, which said 'cesarean section, Miguel Antonio - Patricia del Valle'. Then, the nurse would pick you up, see your genitals and say 'Miguel Antonio'. If I had been a woman I would have been 'Patricia del Valle,'" she recalls.
-What does your mother tell you about that moment?
She was 22 or 23, and they treated her as a number. "Twenty-two," they shouted. I came in a cart where all the babies that had been born were and they were distributing them to their mothers. My old lady always tells me 'there I think they have changed you'. My old lady always makes that joke. She says she had a pretty hard time because she was so weak. But that's the point, to put humor to the bad moment and the bad moment may become a funny anecdote. I learned that since I was a kid. When I tell the monologues about poverty I do not romanticize it but it is more a matter of "I have green eyes from drinking so much cooked mate". Out there you say something serious in the background, because you have to eat other foods and that is not healthy, but with humor.
The house on Laprida Street, shame and separate rooms
In his shows, Gordillo tells hilarious anecdotes, but also recounts times of poverty. Knowing if everything he says is true is a great unknown that in this conversation with Clarín will cease to be.
"The stories I tell, some are 100% real, but with salt and pepper, with some jewelry, because in the middle there is a poetic flight that would be the inserted jokes. However, the vast majority if it does not have 80% has 100% veracity. And there are others that are a joke that I make in the first person. Out there the stories have no punchline and are what is in the middle, what has really happened to you, "he explains.
And he adds: "My old woman's thing is also true, the voice of Batman when we went to my aunt Pocha's house, who told me (she puts a thick voice, like Batman's) 'do not make me feel ashamed because you are a delicate brat who does not eat anything'. My aunt made a disgusting vegetable soufflé."
Miguel, during his childhood, being bathed in the laundry pool by his mother. Photo: Instagram
-Does Aunt Pocha exist?
-Actually it is not called Pocha, it has another name. It does not have a name that looks nice in the artistic. But Pocha... We all have an aunt named Pocha! My real aunt has another name, but I try to give my characters Pocha, Cacho, Tito, more theatrical names.
-Let's talk about your childhood, what was your house like?
-It was on Laprida Street and it was very ugly. Horrible. We had a front that I was ashamed to say lived there. Inside it was a normal house. We had the garden in front, but it had no bars. It had a crumbling wall. The one in Villa Fiorito del Diego next to that was a mansion. As a teenager I was embarrassed. If someone wanted to accompany me to my house, I was ashamed. The bums didn't, but if I was showing off to a girl and wondered where I lived, I would say "over there, it doesn't matter".
-What characteristics did that house have?
-It had no sidewalk. It was subfloor nothing more. The sidewalk had to be put by the owner. They came all sidewalks, sidewalks, sidewalks and in my house it went down and it was subfloor. On top of that, I had two rich neighbors. One had a miniservice and the other a shoe store. So it was like they had a kind of porcelain tile and we had nothing.
-And inside what was it like?
-A kitchen, two bedrooms and a bathroom. Oh, and a laundry room and nothing else. There were five of us. I have two brothers, Ruben and Edgardo. And my old men, for as long as I can remember, did not sleep in the same room. Because you say "in one the marriage sleeps and in the other the three brothers". No! They, to save the relationship, slept in separate rooms. I sometimes throw it on my partner, but I don't have a quorum.
-Who did you sleep with?
"I slept with my old woman and my older brother with my old man. There was a big bed and a small bed. The TV and light went out at the time she said.
-Didn't it strike you that your parents slept apart?
-Yes, but when we asked my old woman told us: "Your old man snores, turn on the radio at 5 in the morning, smoke, cough ...".
"And what did your dad say?"
"I don't like having my eggs broken." I think they saved the relationship like that, they were almost 40 years together because they did that.
Gordillo parodies a policeman, but shines with his jokes. Photo: Martín Bonetto
The first memory of his life, the frustrations and the "bad" teacher who changed his life
The life of Miguel Martín is a constant becoming. In his story, bad moments always become great anecdotes, although not immediately. Kindergarten, for example, was one of his first traumas that today, from a distance, the comedian sees as the initial stone of his histrionic identity.
"The first memory I have of my life is artistic," he replies when asked about his childhood in Tucumán. He adds: "I was going to kindergarten... I was actually going to go to the garden of 4, but I didn't want to because I was the typical crying at the door and I stopped going."
The garden was called Gurrumín and was on Azcuénaga Street, just half a block from that "horrible" house for which years later, in his adolescence, Miguel would feel ashamed.
"My old lady wanted to send me and I didn't want to go, there was no way to leave me. Then my mom threatened me. He told me: 'Next year you're going to go yes or yes because it's mandatory,'" he recalls, laughing.
She adds: "My wheelbarrow was shaking when my mom left on the first day, at age 5. But that year I had a little better. I have my earliest memories, if you will, of acting. He sang a song that said 'When I went to California a cowboy I found, as he had no name Goyeneche I gave him'. In the last part of that song, he said 'when they take out the guns they make pim pam pum, when they kiss the girls they do mua mua mua, and the girls respond with a plaf plaf plaf'. And the slaps, instead of throwing them in the air like all the boys, I hit myself."
-And what did the teachers say?
-I saw that this generated laughter to my companions. And I was already crazy, I would stand on top of the chair or hit the wall and that made them funny. The teacher was kind of breaking her balls and telling my mom 'your son does this and this'. And my mom would scream at me 'play well, play well'. Those are the first memories.
-What else do you remember about those times?
-I remember that and also having played an ant in a kindergarten act. I can't forget that. Maybe I forget other things, but not about that. And well, then I got frustrated in elementary school about acting. When I was very young I already saw that I liked it a lot.
Gordillo performs his show to a full house every weekend. And it has dual function. Photo: Martín Bonetto
-What frustrations?
-The frustration of not being able to do Pinocchio. There was a phonomime of Pinocchio, who played the music and all the boys whose mothers were more present and paid the cooperator, acted. I would tell my mom, "Let's pay the cooperator." And she'd say, "No, you're going to a public school, I'm not going to pay anything." My mom was not very cooperative. So that caused me a lot of frustration. I saw a friend of mine who reluctantly had to act and I said "you're the old surgeon they called urgently, it's great". "No, I don't like acting," he replied. Life itself.
-The economic question began to play at that time. I mean, you started to notice a difference, didn't you?
-Yes, I already noticed that money did not make happiness but it facilitated a lot of things, for example that your child acted at school. There was a mother who had a candy distributor and brought it. Not for everyone but for the teacher. Manzanitas brought the little boy who played Pinocchio to the teacher, and he was a bad student.
-Outside of school, what did you like to do?
-In the village it was more about playing football or playing with the dolls of the time: Rambo, Thundercats, the Galactic Falcons. Obviously I didn't have them. He had a companion who was the potentate, that his father worked in a television production company in Tucumán and had everything. We played with him. We would hang out with him so we could play (laughs).
Were you a shy or loose boy?
-Neither so loose nor so shy. When he was younger, he was looser and older, at 10 years old, he was a little shyer. I was withdrawing a little. I remember that when I finally participated in a play at school I had stage fright, I forgot the lyrics. And there the teacher told me: "Martin, you are for something else, do not expose yourself by doing this, it is not necessary."
-What work was it?
-It was called El viento en el Aconquija. It was actually a reading from a book. The Aconquija is a hill in Tucumán and I was the presenter. The teacher had made a play from this reading book we had. He had done that and a play. I screwed it up and the teacher threw that at me. So I struggled with theater from 10 to 15. I didn't participate in anything anymore.
When did that change?
-At 15, the language teacher made me say a poem. Imagine for a teenager saying a poem. It was difficult. I was from Famaillá, but my old lady sent me to Montero to high school. It was a school that until recently had been for women. Then we were 36 women and 6 men, nothing more, in the course. Obviously the girls were always more uninhibited. They passed, they said the perfect lesson and then we had to pass the boys. 36 women looked at you, imagine...
-Why do you remember that moment?
-La poesía decía "¿Qué me diste Moriana en este vino que pierdo todo el sentido?". El profesor me dijo "Martín, es horrible lo que usted hace". Imaginate, todo tímido. Él me empezó a gritar y me dijo "ponele onda". Y yo lo empecé a imitar. Estaba caliente y el enojo me hizo imitarlo porque me estaba presionando y exponiendo adelante de todos.
-Te estaba pasando otra vez lo mismo.
-Exactamente. Entonces lo empecé a imitar a él y todo el curso estalló en una risa. Yo estaba caliente y cuando estallaron todos de risa el profesor me dijo: "Excelente, así, así". A partir de ese momento me empezó a tener como caballito de batalla. Había que leer algo y me decía: "Pase, Martín". Yo lo imitaba a él, lo estaba gastando en realidad. Hasta que me puso en una obra de teatro, en un musical en el que no decíamos texto. Solamente teníamos que actuar. Era un museo de la música en el que yo era el que limpiaba las estatuas. Cuando les pasaba el plumero, se activaban las estatuas. Tuvo mucho éxito en la escuela normal de Montero y ahí hicimos como una gira.
-¿A ese profesor le debés tu presente?
-The teacher, who I only had in third year, said that nobody deserved a grade ten because that was perfection and nobody is perfect. And he said that no man could have more than eight because women were better at their subject. But when the year ended he told me "you are the only male I gave 9 in the history of my career". So well, it was a pride. We were all afraid of him, he was very demanding. But that's where it all started. I realized that acting and getting on stage opened a lot of doors for me with everything. In the subjects, but also to compare some young woman. He threw a joke at them. "Make her laugh until she forgets you're ugly," that's my big catchphrase. Even today that I am married to Soraya, she is very pretty and is the law of the funnel: "The most beautiful with the most boludo". Or that of the skinny prisoner, whose wife is too big.
-Did you study acting?
-I not only did workshops, short courses in Tucumán. In the summer everything died. But the municipality gave free courses and there he sent me. In the village there was also a teacher who gave theater, there were 65 registered and there were five of us. So those five of us did comedy, classics like La fiaca. And on Friday nights we performed in a theater that was there in Famaillá, the entrance was free and it was full, the whole town was going to see you.
The prediction of his father, his love story and why going to therapy made him work less
"When I reached fifth grade my old man asked me what I was going to do. I told him I liked theatre and he said 'not that, you're going to shit hungry, it's dirty and hippie'. He threw me down and told me 'study a short career, I don't want to bank you much, I don't get the gas'. Then I studied systems engineering for three years, a tertiary one. During the day I helped him in the business, which had a soda shop, and at night he went to study, "he recalls about his early adulthood.
-And did it go well?
-I graduated and got a job in a computer house in Tucumán. But the last year he was already receiving a salary studying because he was a computer teacher. That salary was the equivalent of the quota. It's not that I saw silver.
"And when did you make real money?"
-At the age of 20 I had my first silver and I did high. It was a lot of money because it was a new company that arrived in Tucumán. It was called Compu Expert. There I met Sebastian, who is my manager now, he worked in the appliances part. I was very salty and little returning. I earned two thousand and the rent was 200. I felt like a king. But in 2001, boooom. Everything for the ortho. I went from an apartment to sharing a room in a pension.
"Your wife as you met her?"
-La Soraya had her grandmother and mother who were from Famaillá. Two or three blocks from my house his grandmother lived and she came every Sunday. I've known her since I was about 15 years old. And since we all knew each other in the village, she was the outsider. But he didn't give me five balls.
Miguel and his wife, Soraya. Photo: Instagram
-And when did they start dating?
At 18, she went to the village bowling alley. And the cousin told her "don't dance with anyone other than Miguel." I saw everyone bouncing and I would take her out dancing and say yes. I felt special but it was because the cousin told her that I was the least dangerous of all. That's where it all started.
"So they've been together for almost thirty years?"
-No! She started studying architecture and I started working and I lost track of her. I found it every so often in San Miguel de Tucumán. I came to work in Buenos Aires and eventually returned to the province. I was 29 and she was 27, we were both without a partner, so I threw her a Messenger. I actually asked a friend if she could pass me the phone and she said "not the phone, I pass you the Messenger". Then I started to chat him remembering old times and that's how we started dating. At 30 we got married and at 31 I had my first child.
-That stage just coincides with your explosion as a comedian, right?
Yes, I returned to my province and started working on a program called the Republic of Tucumán. Separately I started uploading videos of Officer Gordillo to YouTube and in Córdoba it was the biggest impact when Cadena 3 began to pass the audios of my jokes. Then I went there (through Córdoba) and started with the seasons.
Miguel the day he married Soraya, more than a decade ago. Photo: Instagram
At what point did you realize that you were going to do well with that?
-It was before, in Tucumán. I participated in a café concert on Saturday nights and was a partner of another kind. But this guy went on vacation and left me the place for me to do January and February. There were 50 places and quickly all the reservations were taken. I started doing well. The guy came back and got into a fight with the bar owner and I followed me throughout the year. I worked Monday through Friday and on Fridays and Saturdays I did that in that bar. There I felt for the first time that I was doing well.
-And at what point did you start to feel famous?
-The fame was gradual. With a friend we went out to the street to see how many people recognized us in Tucumán. But I was very surprised to sit here in Buenos Aires and have the waiter come and ask me if it was Gordillo.
-And the money changed you in anything?
-I felt that if I did a lot of parties it was more money. Once I got to do five parties in one day, it started at five in the afternoon. But there came a time when I began to suffer pain, have low back pain, herniated disc ... The doctors told me it was stress. Then I started to raise the price and work less. I also started doing therapy for the issue of stress.
-What did you learn there?
-The psychologist always told me that my number one tool was my body, that I was going to earn a lot of money but I was going to lose it in remedies. That's when I made the decision not to work too much. That's why I work only three days. Everyone says to me: "Boludo, what are you doing? How only three days?" I used to put him from Tuesday to Sunday, but not now. And I think that fills all the functions. I'm here for three days, but I'm doing it for health. I am much more controlled and so I make sure that this lasts as long as it has to.
-The last one, did it make you guilty to earn good money working only three days?
-My wife once said to me, because we go on vacation or to the theater, "how talented this guy and he is in a theater with ten people." And after that, she's half-raw added, "Do you realize you're not the most talented or the funniest?" There's a wand wave with me, she says. And you have to be grateful for that.
HA
See also
