Emilio Disi, the prince of the unexpected: he adopted his name from the phone book and found his destiny in humor

Between the end of the 1960s and the beginning of the 1980s, the corner of Florida and Paraguay did not exist. Or in any case it existed in the communal cadastre, but not the heart of this crossroads.

The heart, soul, spirit and symphony of this point on the map of Buenos Aires beat on a table in the exact center of such a regal and refined cathedral.

Sergio Renan He talked so much – delighted – with an air of Maria Callasas he whitened with fury at the defeat of Races. And the others, their coryphées, rambled on about ladies, politics -half of them were Peronists-, the cinema, the theatre… enveloped in a cloud of smoke -they all smoked like Turks- and ristretto coffee vapors (essential: no one dared tamper with this noble concoction with milk or similar poison).

From time to time, the cast of the stable was renewed with a newcomer. One of them – or two, better – was Joseph grandpa Stoppartiquino del teatro The Nationalone of the two cathedrals of Buenos Aires magazine, and later comic actor, producer, businessman of a certain weight… and picturesque as few: not to laugh at his occurrences was to miss the place .

Pepe was born in the neighborhood of San Cristóbal. José Luis Parada, municipal employee, and Pura Yáñez, cook, laundress and seamstress: it was not easy to fill the pot…

Pepe arrived in this neighborhood and in this world on the sweltering January 15, 1937, and six years later his brother occupied his crib emilio robertalso in fierce January 1943, with a thermal – which had not yet been measured – of 50 degrees and more.

The youngest, as soon as he could, began to follow the eldest step by step, also determined to duplicate him as an actor.

He fell from maturity. Seeing them together morning, afternoon and evening was, for the less creative of the bar’s worst, stop and stop. As is well understood without going to university, the nickname parade was an obvious and constant trigger for dirty jokes.

But the little boy was undeterred. He opened the bar’s phone book, pointed at a random page and name, and the dice landed on the address of a notorious optician of the day: DiSi.

-Ready! From today my name is Emilio Dissi – condemned the youngest of the Paradas.

Due to a strange epidermal ruse, from now on and forever, Emilio wore the tip of his nose an equivocal red color. Perhaps not by chance: the red nose is the emblem of honor, the sacred sign of clowns…

And after many galleys behind closed doors, his baptism of fire came: the supporting role in marijuana smokehe films Enrique Carreras. a guy called The crazy mane…

follow up We are the bestwith an atmosphere of football and racinguista, and a key leap: entering the cast of you were mine one summerbeside Leonard Favio…¡y Susana Gimenez!

This, until the arrival of the 80s. Its time of epiphany. the TV series Lopez’s children. Telo and TV. The craziest swimmers in the world. Los Extermineitorscon Guillaume Francella. And the signatures follow: tail brigade, Stress, Rompeportones, Married with children, All against Juan, The Fool’s Cage…

But we remember little as much as the sketch of Susana Giménez in the role of Susana Spadafucileand he loves Mariano Garipetti, her husband. But no less than the son of Don Mateothat of Hair salon…

However, the abundant, almost overwhelming statistics of titles and decades in the spotlight and in front of the cameras are not enough to define it. In short: he was born for this.

His face, sometimes – especially in certain dramatic roles where he had to take off his clown clothes – could turn into a strange and painful grimace.

Small in body (could be an ideal left or right winger), his every move seemed to be driven by a secret electric current. It is possible that he read scripts and respected them… but whoever bets on the contrary wins: like other greats, improvisation, crazy departures, off-scripting, always suit him like a costume custom cut on Saville Row. If you ask me for a short and complete title, I already have it: prince of the unexpected.

And though the relationship was short-lived and didn’t end in a bed of roses, he was married to an actress, formerly a stunning revue theater beauty: dory of the valley. They separated in 1991 after 18 years of marriage.

On Friday February 7, 2003, at the age of 66, a cancer of the prostate took away Pepe, his brother. Despite the premature diagnosis, the obvious chances of overcoming it, Pepe was terrified of anything to do with treatments, chemotherapy, surgeries. He let himself go, resorted to absurd alternative therapies, and the evil struck him down at a fixed hour.

Symmetries of fate’s coincidence, or call it what you will: in the middle of 2017, after a routine check, the shot. Lung cancer Far from the classic post-diagnosis stages (from anger to acceptance, and from there to facing the battle), Disi went out to fight like a warrior:

“Cancer won’t beat me.”

The treatment has started. The first signs were encouraging: apparently there were no metastases.

True to his expansive, explosive and confrontational nature, in November of that year – he was already 74 – he appeared on television for the first time since the grim news. Where else? On the program of Susana Giménez, but more as a husband of the famous sketch. Like a patient in his most difficult role: telling his illness and announcing that he would face it until the end.

Serene, with an almost unknown halftone in him, and without collapsing, he recounted each chapter of the drama. And suddenly…, in that tense atmosphere and under the blinding lights of the studio, he was Emilio Disi again. Not to start laughing, but smiles:

—With this disease, if you get depressed… you go! When the doctor told me “lung cancer”, I said: “Excuse me, I’m going to the bathroom and I’ll be back”. But I didn’t go to the toilet. I went out into the street and started bitching. “Son of a bitch, I’m going to beat you!” Suddenly I stopped and said, “Cancer is female or male?” I was confused between the chemo and the tumor. But the tumor is dying, and if all goes as God intended, I still have one session of chemo to go. I lost like 14 kilos. Chemo robs your hunger, ruins your stomach and kidneys. It’s poison… but screwing it up gets you out.

Long pause. And after…

-I feel much better. I recently went out to eat with my friends… and almost ate the waiters! But I’m sorry for Elvira, my partner: she has less than 18 years of pressure… Stress and cigarettes played a trick on me…

A stress that reached its climax two decades after its end with Dorys del Valle.

Genesis. Her in the living room intrudersburied him.

– He’s resentful. When he was nobody, I opened the door for him, I added him to the cast of Dario Vittori. I had a two-year-old child, and no car, house, or suit…

Disi’s defense:

—With Dorys, we work as a couple of actors despite something very serious. I have a visual memory. I read the script twice and goodbye. I know everything. We have been working with Susana for 14 years. We read the script once and threw it away! But Dorys had to play the lyrics 30 times. It was mechanized and grace was lost.

And the storm turned into lightning, thunder and lightning.

She accused him: “He left our house, which I bought, and took everything. Answer: “He was left with a $600,000 house, two apartments and land in Punta del Este and Mar del Plata. Nearly 60% of our heritage”.

Awful. Difficult to write about these miseries – true or false – when one of the two is no longer in the world. It is better to turn the page. Past and present don’t matter, and there’s no future either, except memory.

The only thing that counts in a man, Emilio, named after an optician chosen in the guide, who was alone in front of the Great Gate, and who crossed it despite so much struggle and so much hope.

Although not alone. From somewhere, the ghosts of that table in the Florida Garden greeted him with the same mystique as the triumphs of Racing in its golden years.

Perhaps with them a second life awaits him. Astral, mysterious, impenetrable for those who have not yet arrived.

And not a little leaves us. A vast and endless legacy of laughter, captured in the archives, the jaws of film and television.

We honor his life. ‘Cause best case or worst case how it all started Charles Dickens his immortal novel A tale of two cities, laughter will always be a privilege. And even a miracle…

So be it.

*This note was originally published in 2018 by Alfredo Serra

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