Jorge Porcel

Argentine comedian Jorge Porcel dies in Miami BY RENATO PEREZ
rperez@MiamiHerald.com

Jorge Porcel, the portly Argentine comedian and TV host who leered with gusto at the scantily clad women who surrounded him in his show, died Tuesday night at Mercy Hospital from complications from gall-bladder surgery. He was 69.

For years, Porcel's baby face and trademark leer were a staple of Spanish-language television comedy throughout the world in To Bed With Porcel, a variety show that mixed raunchy humor, music, double-entendres and buxom young women. In the United States, he was seen on the Telemundo network.

A man who put his obesity to his advantage for his public image, Porcel was popularly known as "el Gordo Porcel" or "el Gordo de America," meaning Latin America's fat man. Eventually, that description encompassed the entire hemisphere.

Jorge Raúl Porcel de Peralta was born in Buenos Aires on Sept. 7, 1936, the son of a taxi driver. He planned to study law, but took up comedy and made his debut as an impressionist in a Buenos Aires restaurant. From there, he went on to the popular radio program, The Zany Review.

His film career, which spanned 50 movies, began in 1962 with Zaniness in Mar del Plata and ended in 1993 with a cameo role as a nightclub owner in Carlito's Way, featuring Al Pacino.

In most of the movies he made in Argentina in the 1980s he partnered with another well-known comedian, Alberto Olmedo. The movies, described by some as adult comedies -- by others as "sexploitation" -- were known as the "Olmedo and Porcel flicks." Olmedo died in 1988.

Branching to television, Porcel appeared in the Argentine TV hits Operation Ja-Ja, Don Mateo's Barbershop and Porcel's Kittens. In Miami in 1991, he created To Bed With Porcel as a vehicle for his type of lusty humor. His earthy asides to the camera, delivered with a salacious smirk, delighted his fans.

The suggestively titled program became an instant hit and Porcel remained in Miami, where he opened a restaurant named To Pasta With Porcel. However, in 1995, he experienced a change of heart, became a born-again Christian and dropped out of television, a decision that may have been hastened by the onset of Parkinson's disease.

In l998, he published his autobiography, Laughs, Applause and Tears. He last visited Argentina in 1999, when he addressed his fans as a Pentecostal preacher.

"People have to realize, once and for all, that without God we won't go anywhere," he said in an interview. "The world is mad, but Jesus will come soon."

Funeral plans were uncertain Tuesday night. Alberto Avila, a spokesman for the family, said there would be a viewing in Miami, after which Porcel's body would be flown to Argentina for burial at Chacarita Cemetery in Buenos Aires.