Chespirito (born February 21, 1929 ) is the professional name of Mexican writer, actor, comedian, and songwriter Roberto Gómez Bolaños.
Gómez Bolaños was born in Mexico City. Before becoming an actor, he was an amateur boxer. He also has a degree as an architect. He wrote a number of plays, and contributed dialogue for scripts of films and television shows in Mexico, as well as some character acting work before he became famous. Chespirito was discovered as an actor one day as he was making a line to apply for a job as a writer at Televisa. The network quickly signed him and soon he began writing and starring in his children comedy shows. He continuously starred in shows on Mexican television from 1970 to 1995 and became well known throughout Latin America. His stage name of Chespirito was concocted from the dimutive form the Mexican pronunciation of the name of William Shakespeare, meaning "Little Shakepeare" or "Little Boy Shakespeare".
His best known roles were in the shows El Chavo Del Ocho and El Chapulin Colorado, as El Chavo and El Chapulin.
In El Chavo Del Ocho, Chespirito played a kid who lived inside a beer barrel in a Mexican neighborhood, and in El Chapulin Colorado he played a good hearted super hero who always got involved in funny situations.
These two shows became hits all over Latin America, the United States and Spain, and the stars of the show found international fame.
He also started in such Mexican movies as El Chanfle, and El Chanfle 2.
He married actress Florinda Meza, who starred as Doña Florinda in El Chavo and who occasionally participated in El Chapulin.
After show production was stopped both for El Chavo and El Chapulin, both started to tour Mexico and the rest of Latin America and the United States with different plays, sometimes playing the characters that made them famous.
Chespirito and Ms. Meza have had trouble recently; people in the countries they visit complain that they have started to act like a divo and diva.
On November 26, 2003, Chespirito and Florinda Meza received the keys to the city of Cicero, Illinois.
