Emilio Delgado, who played Luis on Sesame Street, has died
Emilio Delgado, who played the Sesame Street character Luis the handyman, has died at the age of 81.
Delgado passed away in his Manhattan home Thursday due to multiple myeloma, a form of blood cancer, which he had been battling since December 2020, his wife Carole Delgado told The New York Times.
"We are saddened by the news of Emilio's passing. Emilio was an immense talent who brought so much joy and smiles to his fans. He will be missed by many and we know his legacy will live on. Our thoughts are with his loved ones, including his wife, Carole," his rep Robert Attermann, CEO of A3 Artists Agency, said in a statement to Changing America.
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For 44 years, Delgado played Sesame Street's beloved owner of the Fix-It Shop, where he could fix anything from giant toasters and broken cookie jars to dented trash can lids. Luis owned and ran the Fix-It Shop alone for years but was eventually joined by Maria, played by Sonia Manzano. The pair eventually started dating and married on the show during the late 80s.
Delgado was born in 1940 in Calexico, Calif. and had family that lived just across the U.S. Mexico border in Mexicali, his wife told The New York Times.
"He really lived biculturally," Carole told the publication. "Because he was an American citizen, he would walk to Calexico every day for school. It wasn't the border politics of today."
His family later moved to Glendale, where during his teenage years he discovered his passions for music and theater and eventually went on to enroll in CalArts, according to a statement from the Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit that runs Sesame Street.
During Sesame Street's off-season, Delgado would work in the stage and other television shows like Quincy, Hawaii Five-O, Falcon Crest, House of Cards, The Michael J. Fox Show as well as Law & Order. Delgado, a music lover, was also part of a band called Pink Martini which performed at The Hollywood Bowl and Carnegie Hall.
Delgado was a trailblazing Mexican-American actor who helped pave the way to reform Latino representation in television by playing Luis.
Former New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio even designated October 15, 2019 "Emilio Delgado Day" in honor of Delgado's legacy.
"There really wasn't any representation of actual people," Delgado said during a 2021 interview on the YouTube series "Famous Cast Words," according to PBS. "Most of the roles that I went out for were either for bandits or gang members."
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