Cantiflas

Mario Moreno built the character from the ground up: impoverished farmers, peasants, underdogs speaking in loops and syntax that made perfect sense only if you stopped trying to follow it. The persona took him through Mexico's golden age of cinema and into Hollywood, where he won a Golden Globe opposite David Niven in Around the World in 80 Days. Offscreen he waded into labor politics, lending the working-class credibility of Cantinflas to early fights against the PRI's control of trade unions. Philosophers and linguists argued over what he meant - danger, puppet, innovator, picaresque hero - while the character and the man became impossible to separate. He died in 1993, leaving a vocabulary and a film career that outlasted most of his critics.