For a long time, in Spain, Christmas was not included except in Lottery advertising. Not even the Lottery advertisement, without a man who, without being Spanish, has represented us all since 1998: the bald Lottery man. But collective memory is sometimes fragile and, after 20 years without appearing in one of these commercials – yes, the last time we saw him was in the 2005 Christmas commercial – we end up forgetting him. Now, the executive director of the administration of the lottery number 2 of San Pedro del Pinatar (Region of Murcia), popularly known as The Perolobroke the sad news that Clive Arrindell, the English interpreter who played this tender man with the long coat and gentle gaze, died in the summer of 2024. Thanks to the Murcian lottery player Miguel Ángel Zapata, who wrote about it on his administration’s website, we know that Christmas is now a little sadder.
“The ‘Lottery Drop’ dies,” reads the top of the site’s entry announcing Clive Arrindell’s death. In a heartfelt text, published on Monday 10 November, Zapata remembers the actor. In his words: “The person who shared the most enthusiasm in Spain”, and regrets that his death was made known only a year and a half later: “Institutional silence. Unspeakable absence. Media oblivion. Public forgetfulness. Invisible mourning. Funeral omission. Eclipsed memory. Silent death”, laments the lottery in his obituary before looking back at Arrindell’s professional career.
Zapata cites a letter from a friend of Arrindell who confirmed his death “suddenly in the summer of 2024” and in which he “remembers him as a generous man, a devoted artist and a human being who left his mark both on stage and in hearts.” Born in Trinidad and Tobago in 1969 and trained in London, the actor was known and respected in the West End theaters of the British capital, where his talent was recognized. The friend’s letter also recalls that in England he called him on the street “The man in black of the Spanish lottery” and that “when Spanish tourists recognized him while he was having a coffee they did not hesitate to ask him for a photograph”.
For the lottery, which also has a podcasts called The Lucky Wayin which he speaks with various public figures such as Kike Quintana or Rafael Narbona, the sad news arrived last March, when he was preparing to create a route – of luck – from San Pedro del Pinatar to the Teatro Real in Madrid. His intention was to do it accompanied by various personalities (actors, philosophers, actresses, athletes…) to talk about luck from the point of view of philosophy, culture, art and, for Zapara, “Clive couldn’t be missing”. “If you look in the dictionary, luck is the positive result of an unlikely event. But for me, luck is really the big missing link when looking for the reason why things happen. In that search we always come to a link that we ignore, that no one knows about. And everyone clings to a belief, be it scientific, cultural or philosophical,” the lottery winner recently explained to the Efe agency, referring to his project.
In searching for the famous bald lottery man, he started with Google, where “news about his life and misfortune began to appear” which, for the most part, “were from December 2024.” As he points out on his website: “Clive was already dead, but there was no news about him.” So he started searching the British media, reviewing his – inactive – social networks and contacting agencies marketing who had taken him to Spain for the last time and also with a Sevillian photographer who had made a reportage on him in 2021. But the mystery was not cleared up until “a good friend and collaborator of Loterías Perolo found a reference to his death. It was a In memory from the UK Theater in 2024, where it referred to all the British actors who died that year. His name appeared there and it surprised us,” he explains. The second reference to his death was from the school of the Ancient Augustinians, where he studied, where they announced a mass in which his memory would be present. Zapata contacted the school and the response arrived in the form of a letter, from that old friend of his who confirmed Arrindell’s death.
The lottery administration is preparing a mass for December 21 and a tribute to which the actor’s friends and family will be invited, at which a bronze-colored brick with his name will be placed and will be installed in his honor forever. Furthermore, the text on the site confirms, the second season of the Lucky Route will begin in London, from the West End theatre: “Because Clive Arrindell was not just an actor. He was the face of illusion. And his memory deserves to be pronounced with dignity”, he concludes.
