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Senor Saturday Night

Spanish TV's rise in the United States has been driven by eccentric variety show host Don Francisco, who, strictly speaking, isn't Hispanic, and his quirky Sabado Gigante.

By TAMARA LUSH
Published August 21, 2005

[Times photos: Willie J. Allen Jr.]

Don Francisco (a.k.a. Mario Kreutzberger), flanked by model Carol Rosa, is the host of Sabado Gigante, the longest-running program in TV history. The variety show is broadcast live on Saturdays from Univision Studios in Miami.

	The pace is quick on Sabado Gigante, where the stage is filled with performers who may yield suddenly to a large SUV or a dance contest.
	Makeup artist Maria Lok, left, and hairstylist Antoine Mari ready Don Francisco for a broadcast.
	The Sabado Gigante studio audience — 195 strong and spanning the generations — loves Don Francisco and his corny jokes.
	Don Francisco joins in with a contestant during a skit in which audience members sing in hopes of winning prize money.
	Don Francisco takes a 15-minute break backstage during the three-hour live show. In his native Chile, he was a TV pioneer whose early version of Sabado Gigante broadcast for eight hours.

MIAMI - About 20 years ago, a short, slightly grumpy-looking man named Mario Kreutzberger flew into the Miami International Airport from his native Chile.

It wasn't Kreutzberger's first time here - in fact, he came nearly every week - so he knew the drill: grab his folding suit carrier, walk off the plane and wait for an immigration officer behind some grimy desk to wave him through.

On this day, however, the officer paused, holding Kreutzberger's passport in his hands. He leafed through the pages and looked at the entry visa and the dozens of U.S. stamps inside.

"Why do you come to the United States so much?" the officer asked.

Kreutzberger smiled. He answered with more than a hint of pride in his voice.

"I work in Spanish-language television," he said in his best English.

The immigration officer snorted and rolled his eyes.

"Television in Spanish?" he said. "We don't need Spanish television in this country, mister. This is America, and we speak English here."

July 23, 2005

Mario Kreutzberger sits with wet hair, motionless, in a swiveling, barbershop-style chair. A slender man slings a vinyl cape around Kreutzberger's fireplug-shaped torso and begins to vigorously blow-dry Kreutzberger's short hair upward into a mini pompadour.

A woman comes in and whisks a white paper towel around his neck and uses her little finger to dab concealer at the corner of his eyes. Several women in slinky dresses rush in and out of the little room, nervously applying several coats of lip gloss during each visit.

Others holding clipboards and earpieces and cell phones and a box of Cuban toast mill around. Everyone is speaking quickly, in Spanish.

It is Saturday night and the entire crew - including the 64-year-old Kreutzberger - is gearing up for the live, three-hour extravaganza that is Sabado Gigante.

It is the most watched program in the Americas, with some 100-million viewers each week.

Kreutzberger is the creator, producer, director and host. He is a high school dropout, who, technically, is not Hispanic.

He has only missed one show in 43 years.

We are in the dressing room at Univision Studios, in a bland suburb a few miles west of downtown Miami. I am sitting on a chair, wedged between a mirror and Kreutzberger, talking to him about how he is arguably the most popular television host in the Americas.

I ask him why he thinks he has been so successful in the United States, why the rise in ratings for Spanish-language television has mirrored his own success.

The makeup artist dabs his face with powder and he scrunches his eyes closed. He opens them when she is finished and looks at me. He does not smile.

"Perseverance," he says, in English. Then, in Spanish: "Perseverancia."

Kreutzberger's parents were born in Poland and lived in Germany. They were also Jewish. In 1938, when Kreutzberger's father owned a thriving men's clothing store and his mother was about to debut as an opera singer, the Nazis arrived in their city.

The couple were forced to escape, separately. Kreutzberger's mother obtained a visa that allowed her to enter a country on the other side of the world: Chile.

His father was captured and placed in a concentration camp, but somehow managed to get out and reunite with his wife in Santiago.

Mario was born there in 1940. He grew up speaking German, but quickly learned Spanish. Like his mother, he craved applause. When he was a teenager, he took acting lessons and performed as a comic at Club Maccabi, a local Jewish social club.

The teenage Kreutzberger - who by then was becoming something of a comic sensation in Jewish circles in Santiago - created Don Francisco Ziziguen Gonzalez, a German-Chilean-Anglo-Hispanic character, a mix of the diverse and funny people who inhabited Santiago at the time.

Kreutzberger later shortened the character's name to Don Francisco. That character would remain with Kreutzberger the rest of his life.

Kreutzberger dropped out of school at 16 to help his father, who had opened a clothing manufacturing plant.

At 19, his father sent him to New York to learn how to design suits. He arrived at his hotel on 32nd and Broadway and was blown away by something in his hotel room.

"There was a large, antique radio," he said. "It had some kind of black glass cover."

Cautiously, he fiddled with the knobs.

It was the first time he had ever seen a television set.

Needless to say, Kreutzberger studied U.S. television more than suitmaking. He half-heartedly attended design classes and devoured the shows of Art Linkletter, Ed Sullivan and Jack Paar. He began to learn English.

When he went back to Chile, he married his childhood sweetheart and continued to work with his father. And he went back to the Jewish social club and told jokes. But he couldn't stop thinking about television.

"I knew more about TV than anyone in the country, because I had been watching it for two years," Kreutzberger told me. "And it was the truth."

By 1962, Chile had its own state-run station. Kreutzberger pestered the TV executives until they gave him a spot on Sunday. The first broadcasts reached a 40-block radius in Santiago. After a few months, the show was canceled. Kreutzberger was crushed.

The station got so many complaint calls that they decided to put him back on the air: one hour, on Saturdays.

TV's popularity grew. So did Kreutzberger's. He named the show Sabado Gigante (Giant Saturday) and expanded the broadcast to eight hours, from one in the afternoon until nine at night.

Yes, eight hours. Singing, dancing, news, interviews, games, prizes, music. A little bit of everything.

Oh, and while on the air, Kreutzberger wasn't Kreutzberger. He was Don Francisco.

Don Francisco is witty and loves racy jokes. Mario Kreutzberger is a worrier, serious and superstitious to the point where, for good luck, he always has to keep a small, toothpicklike stick wedged in between his wedding ring and his finger.

Don Francisco dances, shakes his pelvis to the youthful, pumping bass of reggaeton. Kreutzberger hasn't danced in 25 years.

Don Francisco has a booming voice and looks really tall. Kreutzberger speaks in even, measured tones and is short.

Don Francisco doesn't have wrinkles, is dashing and relaxed. Kreutzberger worries about being ugly and has plastic surgery.

Don Francisco is ebullient. Kreutzberger is prone to melancholy.

Don Francisco has a head of youthful, shiny black hair and looks like he's in his mid 50s. Kreutzberger takes blood pressure pills, has a touch of diabetes and laments that he has to diet and eat low-fat tuna salad, otherwise he'll get fat.

Kreutzberger became the most popular TV personality in Chile. He survived the fall of President Allende and the rise of the military presidency of Gen. Pinochet by not taking political sides.

He raised millions of dollars and built dozens of hospitals during annual telethons; this had never been done in South America.

But Kreutzberger had one left to conquer: the United States.

In 1985, he approached Miami TV executives at a local Spanish-language station.

Deep down, Kreutzberger had his doubts. Sabado Gigante was Chilean. The jokes were Chilean, the music was Chilean, the feel was Chilean. How could he adapt that to Miami, which was predominantly Cuban?

The executives gave him a chance.

And, just like in Chile, the show grew. From one hour, to three. The Cubans in Miami loved it. Univision, the network, broadcast it in Arizona, New York, Los Angeles. The Mexicans loved it and so did the Puerto Ricans.

National sponsors signed on, although some were a little reluctant; one day, Kreutzberger went to a nationally known department store in hopes of selling ads on his show.

"You want to sell me Spanish advertising?" the department store manager said. "Don't you know that your viewers are the ones who come here every day of the week to rip us off?"

Univision Press Release, dated Aug. 4, 2005:

"Univision remains the country's fifth most-watched network overall in prime time among all Adults 18-49 and 18-34. Univision ranked among the top four networks by delivering more total Adult viewers 18-34 than at least one of the traditional "Big 4' on nearly two out of three nights in the second quarter, ranking as the #1 network in the country on 10 nights."

Between 1986 and 1989, Kreutzberger traveled between Miami and Chile each week, doing the show in both places. He later figured that he spent 365 nights in an airplane.

This put a lot of stress on his wife and his three children.

Kreutzberger laments this in his autobiography.

"When my son Patricio was just a little boy, we had to take him to a psychologist due to some learning difficulties he was having at school. The therapist gave him a paper and pencil and asked him to draw a picture of his family. He drew us, right then and there: his mother, his sister, his brother and, somewhere far off, a tiny dot. That was me."

Kreutzberger has missed only one show since he began in 1962, and that was because his mother died. He didn't take time off for anything else, not the birth of his children nor the death of his father. A sexual-harassment lawsuit here in the United States that was later dismissed - one of the dancers on the show accused him of groping her - didn't affect his streak or his popularity.

Kreutzberger calls his love of television "bigamy," a love that has kidnapped him and seduced him for 43 years.

In 1990, he passed the Chilean show on to his daughter and moved to Miami to concentrate on the U.S. show.

In August 2002, the Guinness Book of World Records named Sabado Gigante the longest-running program in TV history. He has been inducted into the broadcaster's hall of fame in the United States and has a star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame.

Yet despite his wide popularity among Hispanics - some say he is the most recognizable figure in the Hispanic world - there are many parts of the United States where he could walk down the street and never be recognized.

Kreutzberger and his wife, Temy, live in a $4.4-million house in Miami Beach.

Not South Beach, where the famous and extroverted live, but on the northern shores of the barrier island. Kreutzberger prefers the anonymous life, as much as he can have that kind of life in Miami, where he is constantly recognized by the city's vast Hispanic population.

It's unclear whether he was eccentric before he was famous, or whether fame has brought on the quirkiness.

He has used the same wallet for 30 years, and every Saturday, brings his homemade tuna salad, a pita and a little jar of hot sauce into the Univision studios. No lavish spreads backstage.

Kreutzberger is kind of a throwback to another era. He reminds me of the legions of frugal, elegant and formal old men that I have seen all over Europe, or in Little Havana. Even when he eats his tuna salad, he's got more table manners than half of America.

He can be flirtatious, but says he's toned that down since the harassment suit.

"It's true that I'm no saint and that I love women," he wrote in his autobiography. "I've always loved them, since I was little."

Two Fridays a month, the night before he tapes a live show, he takes a sleeping pill so he can sleep eight or nine hours. Otherwise, he will only sleep three or four; he's often up worrying.

He socializes only with close friends, and never goes to clubs or the beach. You won't see his name in the Spanish-language tabloids.

"No, no, no," when I asked him why he doesn't lounge around on the fine white sand of Miami Beach. "I'm here for the TV. My feet have never touched the beach here."

When he's not preparing or hosting Sabado, he's preparing or hosting his other Univision show, a celebrity talk hour called Don Francisco Presenta. And he's got a reality show in the works for the fall.

He admits to two vices: wine and shoes.

When I told him I was from the Tampa Bay area, his eyes lit up.

"Bern's restaurant," he said. "I love Bern's."

He recently invested money in a Chilean vineyard and has started producing his own wine.

He also is on a quest to find the perfect shoe. Some years ago, his wife talked him into buying a pair of Florsheim shoes. He balked at the price, saying that he could buy a pair in Chile for less than $25. He wouldn't wear them immediately after buying them, though. He didn't want to get them dirty.

Since then, he's been obsessed with shoes: collecting them, visiting shoe stores, checking out other men's shoes.

During our interview, I asked him about the ones he was wearing. They were stylish, pointy-toed, black leather.

"Prada," he said. "These aren't perfect. I'm looking for the perfect shoe. I haven't found it. Not yet."

The disembodied announcer's voice greets me as I walk into the studio.

"Y para comenzar el carnival gigante de alegria, aqui esta . . . the one and only . . . the man . . . Don Francisco!"

By the first commercial break, I had lost track of how many skits had been performed. By the second break, I was sweating slightly despite the subzero temperature in the studio. Kreutzberger changed into multiple hats and vests, introduced singers, interviewed someone who hadn't seen her sister in 20 years.

Three-quarters of the way through, at about 9:15 p.m., I looked down at my notebook to scribble some thoughts.

When I looked back up, a large SUV had appeared onstage.

It's that frenzied inside the studio: A vehicle can appear seemingly out of nowhere, while the audience is distracted by the dancing girls in hot pants, the tearful family reunions, the norteno dancing contests.

Kreutzberger is the only one who looks relaxed.

The audience loves Don Francisco. They love the whole show, really, eating up the corny jokes and ogling the pretty dancers and clapping along to the Spanish rap.

The audience is made up of 195 people - some of them from Miami, others bused in from Hispanic outposts such as Immokalee, Bonita Springs and Homestead - and spans the generations. Just like his TV audience.

Kreutzberger's love affair may actually be with his audience. He knows them as well as a husband knows a wife, the way a mother knows her children.

During a commercial break, Kreutzberger walks up to where I am sitting.

He tells me that he tries to inform his audience of current events, things they need to know. In Chile, this meant telling people about an influenza outbreak or the weather. In the United States, this means talking about politics - he interviewed both President Bush and Sen. John Kerry during the 2004 election - and about immigration.

Later on tonight, he says, he will interview a Mexican couple whose daughter died in the Arizona desert, trying to cross into the United States illegally.

"The audience will cry," he predicts.

They did.

Kreutzberger, it seems, tries to be all things to all cultures, and somehow succeeds. A bit of Reggaeton for the teens and the Puerto Ricans. Some salsa for the Cubans. Norteno dancing for the Mexicans. Slapstick humor on par with the Three Stooges. A Venezuelan dancer here and a Chilean joke there, and you've got what he calls a "soup."

"There's basic ingredients," he said. "You can add or take out the ingredients, but it has the same flavor every week."

For someone who grew up in the United States, the flavor is a bit hard to digest. Sabado Gigante is sexy without showing actual sex (scantily clad dancers are in almost every scene), yet wholesome (cute kids often appear in various segments). Some of it is easy to follow, even if you don't speak Spanish: Singing contests involving the public are funny in any language.

But other parts of it are odd, even surreal. A guy dressed up as a hooded, chain-mail-wearing executioner makes frequent appearances onstage, inexplicably with a trumpet. His name is El Chacal, or "The Jackal." A costumed lion usually accompanies El Chacal.

The audience loves both.

"Que bonico!" Kreutzberger booms after a segment involving the Jackal, the Lion and a construction worker from Los Angeles who tried to serenade his girlfriend. ("How Nice!")

"QUE HERMOSO!" the audience responds. ("How beautiful!")

Anyone who is someone in the Latin music world has stopped by the show - Enrique Iglesias, Shakira, Los Tigres del Norte - and fledgling careers have taken off after an appearance.

One, sometimes two cars are given away. Thousands of dollars in cash. A beautiful woman is always crowned Miss Something. (Recently, it was Miss Norteno.)

Kreutzberger and one of the models even do old-fashioned advertising, where they hold up the product (Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, Pepsi, laxatives) and extol its virtues.

There is not a single program like this on television in the United States. It's a little like the Ed Sullivan Show, combined with a dash of The Price is Right, a touch of Oprah and a pinch of The Benny Hill Show.

Somehow, it all works. With the exception of Spain and Argentina, Sabado Gigante is broadcast in every Spanish-speaking country from the United States to Uruguay. It is even popular in Cuba, where people with crooked antennas tune in the fuzzy broadcast from Miami.

He is possibly the single biggest unifying force of the Hispanic culture since the days of the Spanish Empire.

"Everyone who lives here has an uncle or aunt or mother on the other side, has a relative somewhere else," he said. "We are separated by distance, but unified by language."

Kreutzberger can relate to this, this feeling of living in one culture but having other parts of his life firmly rooted in another.

He understands, and that may be the most beautiful thing about Sabado Gigante, Don Francisco and Mario Kreutzberger.

-- Tamara Lush can be reached at 727 893-8612 or lush@sptimes.com

[Last modified August 18, 2005, 11:42:03]