For those who didn’t know, “Ghetto Klown” star John Leguizamo was born to a Puerto Rican father and Colombian mother in Bogotá, Colombia and they immigrated to the US when John was a child.
Now that this well-renowned actor/comedian, his father, Alberto, claims that he’s Colombian — making John 100% Colombian, with no Puerto Rican blood.
In the National Puerto Rican Day Parade yesterday, along Fifth Ave in NY, John was the Global Ambassador of the Arts at the parade.
The father originally went to El Diario, telling the reporter that he’s Colombian and showed proof that he was born there in 1936, John claims his father is from Aguadillo, PR.
“Me duele que él (John) le mienta a los puertorriqueños y no respalde sus raíces colombianas” (translation: “It hurts me that [John] lies to the Puerto Ricans and doesn’t stand behind his Colombian roots,” according to the NY Daily News) he said.
Why come out with the secret (if true) now? Alberto thought his son, John, was over the whole “Boricua” thing — guess not!
Speaking to reporters after his father’s claim that he is not Puerto Rican as he marched in New York’s National Puerto Rican Day Parade, Leguizamo fired back saying;
“I am Colombian-Puerto Rican. I don’t know why he’s saying that. I say that I love him, and why is he saying that?”
John Leguizamo and his father obviously have a strained relationship, which seems to come from that fact that John says he was born in Colombia, but has Puerto Rican, Italian and Lebanese blood in him. His pop says that’s bullshit. Dad is 100 percent Colombian and so is John’s mother.
But according to Wikipedia Leguizamo was born in Bogotá, Colombia, on July 22, 1960, the son of Luz Marina Peláez and Alberto Rudolfo Leguizamo.
His father was once an aspiring film director and studied at Cinecittà, but eventually dropped out due to lack of finances. According to Leguizamo, his surname is of Basque origin and he has distant Basque roots.
Research by the genealogy show Finding Your Roots indicated that Leguizamo does not have Puerto Rican, Italian, and Lebanese ancestry, as he has sometimes stated.
His family is Colombian, and a DNA test found that his genetic ancestry includes European (mostly Spanish), along with Indigenous and distant African roots.
His paternal grandfather was a wealthy Colombian landowner, and his great-great-grandfather, Higinio Cualla, was Mayor of Bogotá for sixteen years in the late 1800s, and was considered an important modernizer of the city.
Leguizamo had always declared that he was Puerto Rican on his father’s side, which was one of the reasons he was selected as the Puerto Rican Day Parade Global Ambassador of the Arts,] and marched in the parade on June 12, 2011.
Going further back in time, it was determined that Leguizamo’s maternal lineage includes the 16th-century Spanish conquistador Sebastián de Belalcázar, as well as Jerónimo Betuma, a 17th-century indigenous Colombian of noble birth.
Early Life
Leguizamo was born on July 22, 1964, in Bogotá, Colombia. Although born in Colombia, Leguizamo spent his formative years in the Jackson Heights neighborhood in Queens, New York.
His parents spent much of their time either working or bickering. His turbulent home life would become the backbone of some of his most popular creative work. His parents eventually divorced when he was 14. afterwards, Leguizamo began getting into a bit of trouble.
He was arrested twice, once for hopping a subway turnstile and another time for truancy. He also broke the law when he and a friend commandeered a subway public address system and performed an impromptu comedy routine…and lets just say that his comedy style was not well received by the police.
In order to “straighten him out,” Leguizamo’s parents sent him back to Colombia for a year. Upon his return, Leguizamo continued to demonstrate a penchant for mischief. At the suggestion of teachers, Leguizamo attended a local acting school, funding his classes through a job at Kentucky Fried Chicken. This led to a stint at New York University in 1991, but Leguizamo soon left school to join the Off Center Theater, a Manhattan comedy troupe. Leguizamo’s pursuit paid off as per his Filmography below.
Filmography
- first appeared in front of the cameras in an episode of Miami Vice(1984)
- His first film appearance was a small part in Mixed Blood(1984)
- and he had minor roles in Casualties of War(1989) and Die Hard 2 (1990)
- A liquor store thief who shoots Harrison Fordin Regarding Henry (1991)
- Hanging’ with the Homeboys(1991)
- Mambo Mouth(1991), in which he portrayed seven different Latino characters.
- Spic-O-Rama (1993). It played in Chicago and New York, and won the Drama Desk Award and four CableACE Awards.
- In 1995 he created and starred in the short-lived TV series House of Buggin’
- Key appearances in Super Mario Bros.(1993)
- Romeo & Juliet(1996)
- Spawn(1997)
- In 1998 he made his Broadway debut in Freak, a “demi-semi-quasi-pseudo-autobiographical” one-man show, which was filmed for HBO by Spike Lee.
- Utilizing his distinctive vocal talents, he next voiced a pesky rat in Doctor Dolittle(1998)
- Before appearing in the dynamic Spike Lee-directed Summer of Sam(1999)
- Starred as the Genie of The Lamp in the exciting Arabian Nights (2000)
- Starred as Henri DE Toulouse Lautrec in the visually spectacular Moulin Rouge!(2001)
- He also voiced Sid in the animated Ice Age(2002)
- Co-starred alongside Arnold Schwarzenegger in Collateral Damage (2002)
- Directed and starred in the boxing film Undefeated(2003)
- Subsequently, Leguizamo starred in the remake of the John Carpenter hit, Assault on Precinct 13 (2005)
- George A. Romero’s long-awaited fourth “Dead” film, Land of the Dead(2005)
- Starred in nothing Like the Holidays (2008), directed by Alfredo Rodriguez de Villa
