• Album The life of the comedian and singer, in pictures

  • Humor "Chiquito de la Calzada is light in these dark times"

In the midst of so much stress, rictus of sadness and lost as well as absent looks, it is convenient to remember the revered French novelist Victor Hugo when he stressed that

"laughter is the sun that drives winter away from the human face."

Since Chiquito de la Calzada -his real name was

Gregorio Esteban Sánchez Fernández-

started working when he was eight years old, he was in charge of cultivating, collecting and spreading his grace so that the long nights of cold, hunger and loneliness of several generations were disguised of hilarity.

It had the same social function as the movies and gossip magazines, to evade reality and only see

the foam of life.

Yesterday was five years since the death, at the age of 85, of this universal Malaga native, with the permission of Antonio Banderas, who had his moment of glory in a sequence as

a clapper in a flamenco painting,

one of the episodes of

Vacations at sea

shot in 1985.

This is a small anecdote for such a vast career.

They called that artist who barely raised a foot from the ground Chiquito because that is what he was and the 'of' not because he was of high birth, but because he was born on

Calle Calzada de la Trinidad in Malaga.

Chiquito de la Calzada in one of his most characteristic gestures.EM

"He was humble, he didn't believe anything and he was never aware of how far he had come. He wasn't superficial. He didn't cheat. He shook hands with a homeless man the same as with the King. Always very polite," he assures LOC exclusively

. niece, Loli Arjona

, who still bears the sanbenito of being the universal heiress of one of the most popular comedians of the late 20th and early 21st centuries.

With a strong accent from Malaga, Loli mixes the grace of the south with anger:

"Inheritance brings me down the street of bitterness"

, he adds, to later refer to the supposed four million euros inherited:

"But if the Junta Andalusia has already taken 70%!

She is the universal heiress, not me. Then the

Treasury took another part,

it knows very well what I inherited and then to pay the capital gains to the City Council".

He doesn't want the money wound to be reopened, but things have to be clear: "They don't say a single truth with the inheritance.

Four million? When?

I'm still looking for them. They have taken euros from me as if they were the Gremlins. You can't go saying that barbarity because those comments hurt,

and when I go to the cashier I am afraid, I look everywhere

.

I still live on the same block.

My life has not changed.

I don't like to travel, I'm happy seeing the sea of ​​my Malaga from the terrace and I go for a walk with my husband and the dog".

Yes, according to the Land Registry there was a

200-square-meter house

on the Antonio Machado promenade valued at around 400,000 euros from whose terrace you could see the San Andrés beach and two parking spaces in the same building.

No other immovable property was found in the aforementioned register.

Loli affirms that his uncle, as he liked to be called,

"didn't like to show off and shunned luxuries

. "

He obviously gave his wife, Josefa García,

Pepita

, a flirty little gift or some "trinket", as Marujita Díaz called jewels.

Chiquito de la Calzada and his wife, Pepita.EFE

Theirs was a movie love story.

They were

both pipiolos when they married in 1950

.

Pepita's death a decade ago was the only blow that separated them forever after 62 years of marriage.

Chiquito told the

Malaga newspaper

La Opinion that he

met Pepita in Cordoba

"while working in Manolita Chen's Chinese circus. When I saw that woman in the front row I said to myself: 'See you later, Lucas! This one won't go away'."

"My aunt was her rudder, everything that her wife said went to mass - she emphasizes - because she was a wonderful, affectionate, simple woman and she always took my uncle's fame very well."

Loli likes to remember him tenderly

and after five years, she still feels some pain.

There is sorrow.

Some scars don't finish healing.

Every time he goes out there is always someone who talks to him about him and on top of that, then there is the traffic light they put next to his house with Chiquito's voice and his famous

"torpedo" fillers, "I'm going to shit on your teeth ", "condemor", "peasant of the prairie".

.. At the time, Loli paid the corresponding taxes to the City Council, but the City Council did not ask for permission to put up the traffic light.

In this case, his niece, who does not want to be famous and has never accepted a check for sitting on a set, asserts that "my uncle left me all the image and voice rights.

I am the universal heiress."

she sneers as she verbalizes her thoughts: "Well, I'm not sure I've recorded her most famous phrases."

Throughout these years many lies have been told, among them, that Loli took care of the marriage.

It was not so.

While Pepita lived she watched over her husband, but when he became a widower he relied more on his niece.

"When my aunt died I was taking care of my mother. Then she passed away. Once my uncle was widowed

he asked me to see each other more

, so every morning we had breakfast, we went for a walk downtown... Basically he helped me much more because I was very touched after the death of my mother".

Before going to the hairdresser, Loli reveals a detail about Chiquito: "He was a gentleman from before. He

helped you put on your coat

and if you entered a store he always opened the door for you.

If we were in a restaurant he peeled a shrimp for you

, but don't think that those who were close also received another ", he assures between laughs.

The affection of Paz Padilla and Tomás Summers

dropdown

Chiquito's niece is the daughter of his brother Paco, who had another brother, Tomás.

Loli has been married for a little over three decades and has two children.

For a time they lived in the Sant Cosme neighborhood in Esplugues de Llobregat (Barcelona), until they moved to Malaga.

She fondly remembers producer Tomás Summers, who died seven months ago from Covid, and discovered Chiquito on television.

Starting with

Genio y figura

(1994-1995), the comedian became one of the most endearing characters on the art scene.

Thanks to that space, Loli made great friends like Paz Padilla, Pilar Sánchez, Eduardo Bandera and Manolo Sarria.

When Chiquito passed away, Loli wanted to see the movie

Papá Piquillo

(1998), "because that's where the real Chiquito is."

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