Anthony Chase, our local theater critic, praised Charo who he has seen in concert several times, and urged the listeners of his radio segment to buy tickets to see Charo when she was scheduled to appear in Western New York. For those of you who many be unfamiliar with Charo, she is a Spanish-born actress, singer, comedian, and flamenco guitarist who rose to international prominence in the 1960s on American television, as well as starring in several films. Charo began playing classical (Spanish-style) guitar at the age of nine, training under the famed guitarist Andrés Segovia. When she arrived in the United States, she became a popular guest on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson and was known as the “cuchi-cuchi” girl.
Since Charo was appearing at the Rivera Theater–five minutes from our house–Diane had me buy two tickets on Thanksgiving Eve to witness this event. Charo performed a high energy show singing some ABBA songs, playing her classical guitar–of course she played “Bolero”!–and plunged into the enthusiastic audience who took dozens of selfies with the famous Charo. All in all, an excellent concert by an 80-ish woman who doesn’t look or act her age! Do you remember Charo? GRADE: B+
Of course I remember her: she was a fixture of 1970s late-night talk shows—the focus always being her ditzy/fiery Hispanic persona and her, um, ample assets, sort of the way Sophia Vagara is perceived today. I’m sure Jeff (if he’s not on a plane right now) will make note of how “flexible” Charo’s approach to her age is: based on some of her “recollections”, she would have been six years old when she married Xavier Cugat, lol.
Deb, Charo looked amazingly fit during this concert! As you suggest, Charo’s age is “flexible” but I’m guessing she is in her 80s.
Deb, was there ever anyone who gave more of an appearance of a randy old goat than Xavier Cugat? (Excluding members of the incoming administration, of course.)
The incoming (koff) kleptocrats may be randy, but goat is too kind. George, I’d say she looks her age, but healthy for that age…guitarists (and, really most musicians) get almost as much of a workout as do drummers, and usually to some extent in a less self-damaging way than dancers do (I can imagine how much worse arthritis would be for a guitarist, pianist or drummer than it would be for a trombonist, and still no fun for those who were more serious about that instrument than I was). About as close to being a guitarist as I’ve ever been was showing my sister how to play the central riff of John Coltrane’s “A Love Supreme” on her new fretless bass…she’d grown so used to depending on the frets of her previous basses…but a trombonist quickly learns the advantages of not realizing on clear demarcation or default fingering (cuchi cuchi) in achieving desired sounds.
Todd, Charo’s guitar playing was impressive. I’d go see her again!
Sorry Jerry, George, I’m still waking up.
As one can tell by my apparently typing “realizing” for “relying:–a less the spell-checker did that for me, I’d certainly catch a concert from her if it doesn’t break the bank, and was handy.
I never knew she was a serious musician. She was so ditzy on those talks shows. Good for you to give it a chance.
Patti, I was impressed with Charo’s guitar playing. I think she just faked the ditziness.
Yeah, most of the chat shows I saw her on made a point of giving her a musical showcase…I don’t know if that was less true in the ’60s, when I was less likely to be watching, than in the ’70s/’80s/’90s. She is, as we might guess as a Segovia student, deadly serious on guitar whenever she chooses to be. I hope she’s not having to fight arthritis or anything like it even now.
Todd, if Charo has arthritis it didn’t show during her North Tonawanda performance.
I remember her best from her New Year’s Eve appearances with Xavier Cugat, and being the only reason hormonal teenaged me watched Cugat over Guy Lombardo. Her talent was always overshadowed by her sexiness, much like Pia Zadora in later times.
As for her age, a woman is allowed her secrets, but her Spanish birth certificate (never a reliable source) would make her something that rhymes with greaty-tree. Other ages given out by her, her publicists, and people in general, rhyme with bleventy-bleven, dreventy-drive, skeventy-skree, pleventy-ploo, breaty-blore, In 1977, a Las Vegas judge rules that Charo’s age rhymed with skeventy-skree, which would mean that she was fifteen when she married Cugat, even though she graduated from high school at sixteen, did not start her musical career until later, and this would have made Cugat 51 years her senior. Ah, the wonders of legal (and entertainment) math!
Jerry, I would guess that Charo believes that age is just a number…that changes with her whims!
Yeah, Charo, one of those celebrities whom I watched as a young’un on Carson, Merv Griffin, and Mike Douglas, wondering what exactly her talent was, beyond (forgive the sexism) the obvious. Jack Douglas and Reiko had the same mystery for me as a kid; they showed up frequently on TV talk, but why. I didn’t know that Jack Douglas was a comedy writer, just as I never knew Charo’s fame as a guitarist.
Fred, Charo’s talent with the classical guitar is real.
I almost had Jack Douglas as a visiting professor at the U of Hawaii as a sophomore, but he backed out (perhaps due to age-related difficulties) in ’83, and A. A. Attanasio ended up leading the workshop course. I had picked up Douglas’s book THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY HASHIMOTO, and then Al’s book RADIX, and much preferred the latter, when dept. chair Robert Onopa fast-tracked me into the graduate class as one of two undergrads.
Todd, it comes as no surprise here that you were “fast-tracked”!
Kind, George! It seemed a better fit in my case than with the 400-level workshop, taught by a regular faculty member who’d taken an instant dislike to me. Onopa had taught the 300 course I took in my second semester as a frosh…won a campus writing award. Like that. No one seemed to remember Myrle Clark, whom the award was named for. When I met Audrey Schulman a couple of years later, she had just won the Cornell Woolrich Award at Barnard/Columbia…him, we could remember. I think my cash prize was $25…Audrey did better, and literarily, still does. She was the roommate of my old friend Keiko, and Audrey was gracious enough to let Keiko’s manfriend Robert Kowal live in their Barnard apt. with them…Bob and I had been at Punahou Academy together…I transferred in the year after Barry Obama was graduated…Kowal and Mary Robinette (Kowal) would meet and marry some years later, as he was getting vintner work and she was going from puppetry as primary career to fiction-writing–https://maryrobinettekowal.com/journal/anniversary-17/. Which is entirely too much rehash, but it certainly can be a small world.
Yes, unfortunately. My version of Hell would be Charo in concert with Barry Manilow.
Also, what Deb said.
Jeff, it probably won’t surprise you that Diane is a big fan of Barry Manilow. We’ve seen him in concert twice.
So has Jackie, both times without me!
Jerry, my aunt’s third husband – a man I never saw when he wasn’t drunk – had that little Cugat mustache thing going.
Jeff, some men think that little Cugat mustache is sexy. Not me!
Manilow with, say, the Bee Gees (or a less-likely yet combo such as with Mountain or the Royal Teens) would be among my hellish torments.
Despite her guitar talent, I couldn’t take her! Too hyper and precious by half! I’m amazed she’s still active!
Bob, Charo was active when she plunged into the audience at the Rivera Theater to take selfies with her fans!