José Luis Moreno

He was born on April 16, 1947 in Madrid, Madrid, Spain, as José Luis Rodríguez Moreno. He's a Spanish entrepreneur, known for his former ventriloquist career as "José Luis Moreno y sus muñecos" ("José Luis Moreno and his dummies"). His mother was a pianist and his father was director of the Teatro Nacional de Marionetas at El Retiro park in Madrid and advisory to the Ministerio de Cultura during the decade of 1970. Six of the seventeen siblings of his mother were ventriloquists, and one of them, "el tío Wences" (Señor Wences), reached certain popularity in the decade of 1950 in the USA with Sammy Davis Jr. and Dean Martin. He entered the music school at the age of six, and he left at the age of sixteen as a piano graduate. He did four additional courses of violoncello. In the beginning of his career he obtained success as an opera singer, and he even acted in some of the best theaters in the world, but a failed relationship with a soprano, called Elia, who left him in Milan at the age of nineteen, made him abandon his career as a singer. As he had read a book ("Cuerpos y almas") earlier -at the age of fourteen- which made him love Medicine, he then decided to study that profession, and later specialized in neurosurgery, working for almost five years in the La Milagrosa hospital. Although he didn't abandon his study of Medicine, he entered the world of spectacle and TV production as a ventriloquist with three dummies made by him in his parents' house at Vicálvaro, Madrid, Spain, named "Monchito", "Macario" and "Rockefeller"; the latest one -a cynical and apolitical crow- having had huge success in Italy. After more than a decade of great success with these dummies, his popularity began to fall and he decided to continue his career backstage, as a TV musical and theater producer and director. Throughout the years, he organized galas, single spectacles or series in several Spanish TV channels like TVE, Antena 3 and Telecinco, and also several Spanish autonomous government channels, and RAI in Italy. In his years as director and presenter of TV musical programs he introduced stars like Europe or Cicciolina (Ilona Staller) to the Spanish public. In 1988 he created the production company Miramón Mendi, which was later acquired by Telecinco. He produced Planta 25 (2006), under his new production company name Alba Adriática. In 2007 his residence at Boadilla del Monte, Madrid, Spain was assaulted by six thieves and after he denied to give them the password for his safe he resulted hit in his head with an ax. His best successes on TV have been the series Aquí no hay quien viva (2003) (whose rights have been acquired by French and Italian channels), La que se avecina (2007) (adaptation of Aquí no hay quien viva (2003) after its change from Antena 3 to Telecinco) and Escenas de matrimonio (2007), whose rights were acquired in 2011 by USA channel ABC together with 'Aquí no hay quien viva' (2003)'s. Other series produced by Miramón Mendi were La sopa boba (2004) and A tortas con la vida (2005), both produced for Antena 3. As an actor, he appeared in Torrente 2: Mission in Marbella (2001) as Spinelli, a terrorist who wanted to destroy the city of Marbella. He's also worked on theater, with revivals of both operas and zarzuelas at La Latina: 'La Revoltosa', 'Doña Francisquita', 'La verbena de la Paloma', 'Gigantes y cabezudos'. He also participated in the comedy 'Matrimoniadas' (2005), whose characters were taken from his former series Noche de fiesta (1999) and La sopa boba (2004); it was starred by Marisa Porcel, Pepe Ruiz, Silvia Gambino, Alfredo Cernuda, Rosana Manso and Martin Czehmester. He also produced 'El diluvio que viene', with Gisela, in 2005-2006. In the same theater he released in 2006 'Antología de la danza española', and, later, the comedy 'La venganza de la Petra', with the following cast: Andoni Ferreño, Silvia Gambino, Luis Perezagua, Marisol Ayuso, Ricardo Arroyo and María Garralón. He's been executive producer in more than twenty TV series, director in fifteen TV series and programs, actor in five TV series and one film, and presenter/artist in eight TV show series, one TV program and the New Year's Eve Special programs for the years 1978-79, 1984-85 and 1985-86. He's also been writer and director for the New Year's Eve special programs for TVE Con la primera al 2001 (2000), Con la primera al 2002 (2001), Con la primera al 2003 (2002), Con la primera al 2004 (2003) and Con la primera al 2005 (2004). In 2002, under the pseudonym Pep he had written twenty six books of different genres (humor, travels, curiosities, novels) in several languages, of which only three had been published in Spanish. He speaks thirteen languages and is graduated in nine of them. In his spare time he was working as a volunteer for the United Nations translating texts in foreign languages. One of the most difficult languages he speaks is Mandarin; he learned it during his work for many months in a hall in Macao. He's been married three times. His first wife, Arguidula Saneanos, is Greek, and gave him one son. His second wife, German, gave him a son and a daughter; his third ex-wife is Italian-Spanish. He's been criticized by media, called "hortera", "rancio", "vulgar" or "casposo" ("tasteless", "sourpuss", "common" or "fusty"), but his audience has been around two million spectators per program.