Cuban-American actor Angel Salazar, who played the role of Chi-Chi in the cult film Scarface (1983), died Monday at the age of 68 in New York, his representatives told the media on Monday night. Salazar, who was also a successful comedian, was found in a friend’s apartment in Brooklyn and the cause is still unknown, but he suffered from heart problems, his representative, Roger Paul, told The New York Times.
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Salazar became famous after playing Chi-Chi, Tony Montana’s (Al Pacino) henchman in the classic crime film written by Oliver Stone and directed by Brian de Palma. Scarface.
It was a remake of the 1932 film of the same name and tells the story of a Cuban refugee who arrives penniless in Miami in the 1980s and becomes a powerful drug trafficker. Anyway, Salazar’s film career includes other well-known titles such as Punchline (1988) y Carlito’s Way (1993).
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The actor was born in 1956 in Cuba, from where he fled in the early 1970s by swimming across Guantanamo Bay to the US naval base. He was sent to Miami and then to a foster home in the Bronx (New York). At 18, and faced with difficulties in finding work as an actor, he tried his luck in a comedy club in the Big Apple and thus began a successful career as a comedian to which many today also dedicate tributes.
Comedian Adam Hunter told X that he worked with him a few months ago and called him a “comedy legend.”
For his part, musician Tito Puente Jr. told him: “From Scarface to Carlito’s way, your characters and comedy will always be missed.”
