He was not a businessman, but he prided himself on having always lived with politicians. He did not study performing arts, but is considered a comedy institution. He wasn’t a big fan of learned parliaments, but he said politicians make the best librettists. Guillermo Rossini González, a pioneer in imitating Peruvian presidents, mayors, ministers and deputies, died on Saturday night in Lima at the age of 93. Someone who for decades dedicated himself to satire on national events was supposed to be the protagonist of some very sad news that put the country in mourning.
In a medium where there are many efforts to monopolize the screen, Rossini inspired respect among his colleagues. He tiptoed through the complex task of making others laugh without making fun of others. He tried not to resort to idle jokes and dignified caricatures. The authorities on duty owe him a charisma that they lacked and that made them more memorable than they would have been. Sometimes Rossini’s programs were a relief valve: he threw critical darts, in a humorous way, at television channels that had to do with power.
The lanky Rossini was gesticulation, but above all voice. A hoarse, quarrelsome and chameleon-like voice that took over the dial. He began his career at Radio Victoria in 1959, imitating an equestrian announcer on the program of Augusto Ferrando, a host famous for discovering talent and ridiculing the vulnerable. But, although he was always grateful for the opportunity, Rossini’s spark almost always chose other directions. He had another sensitivity.
For more than 30 years the Skinny Rossini was a medical visitor. But his work was not limited to promoting new drugs, but to delighting medical staff and even patients. He spread laughter therapy without wearing a red ball on his nose. He inherited jokes and positive attitude towards life from his mother, a Galician. His father, originally from Arequipa, wanted to introduce him to the art of sculpture and they worked together, modeling mausoleums and tombstones. “In cemeteries I receive more applause. There, like a hundred thousand souls, they applaud me,” he once said.
But comedy prevailed and made him wander around five television channels. Teleloquibambia, The vine AND Bizarre They were the first spaces where he learned his skills among black and white scenes. He was inside Laughter and salsa where its popularity grew from the early 1980s to the mid-1990s. A violent time, where laughing was a necessity and an act of resistance. A country destroyed by hyperinflation, corruption and the crossfire between terrorism and the Armed Forces. Rossini has not gone unnoticed since then.
Even if it was with his own project The funny ones – a program that has been broadcast continuously on Radio Programas del Perú for 31 years – which has won the unanimous affection of the people. The method seemed simple: read the news of the day with a great touch of irony. But in practice more than simple grace was needed. It was necessary to form a team capable of perfecting a vast repertoire of voices. But improvise based on the information. Just when Ferrando discovered it, Rossini had the eye to recruit young comedians now in their fifties: Fernando Armas, Hernán Vidaurre, Giovanna Castro and Manolo Rojas.
“More than 60 years on the radio, a good record (…) He was very fast, funny, never in bad taste, always with a fine and elegant humor. He taught me a lot”, says Vidaurre. “It’s a real blow that one day in our lives it has to happen to us too, but we didn’t think it would be like this, at this moment. He was like our father, our example,” says Manolo Rojas. On September 6, the day Rossini turned 93, the pranksters found themselves again around a table with a long tablecloth and an endless round of jokes. With them Rossini makes the leap to cinema in 2016, in The candidatewhere he played Ollanta Humala’s father.
Him Skinny Rossini retired from the stage in mid-2021, one step away from base nine, after the second wave of the coronavirus. Making people laugh on a video call wasn’t his thing. It was difficult for him to listen to his companions and he felt that their voices did not convey his sparkle in the same way. He didn’t say goodbye to his listeners because he didn’t want to cry live. That was the extent of his commitment to humor. He assumed that despite having a pacemaker and having “more cuts on his chest than a road” due to his heart problems, his sanity remained intact. “I still don’t play maracas,” he said, referring to those who suffer from Parkinson’s.
A collection of impersonators remains in the archives, including former presidents Manuel Prado, Francisco Morales Bermúdez and Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, as well as former Lima mayors Alfonso Barrantes, Luis Bedoya Reyes and Susana Villarán. Also present were former ministers Alfonso Grados Bertorini, Juan Carlos Hurtado Miller and, of course, former first lady Susana Higuchi. Guillermo Rossini made the “hey, gentleman” – with which he imitated the former Defense Minister, David Waisman – his trademark. It wasn’t so much what he said, but how he said it.
He cured himself of politics after serving twice as a city councilor in the Jesús María neighborhood of Lima in the 1980s. He was a fan of Deportivo Municipal, a legendary football team that is moving away from the First Division and whose uniform is almost identical to that of the Peruvian team: white shirt and red stripe. A club of few joys with a loyal fan base. Even in those areas the ‘Flaco’ Rossini did not arouse antipathy. The artist who gave us six decades of good times is resting. A humor therapist.
