Amador Bendayán

• Name — Amador Bendayán • Born — 11 November 1920 • Died — 4 August 1989 • Birthplace — Villa de Cura, Aragua, Venezuela • Occupation — television • Years Active — 1937–1989 • Illustration — Amador in the late 1950s.

The son of Moroccan Jewish immigrants, Bendayán was born in Villa de Cura, Aragua, and was raised and educated in Caracas. He started his career in radio in 1937 as an announcer and comedian. Bendayán gained a huge popularity for his comedies El Bachiller y Bartolo (1949–59) and La Bodega de la Esquina (1950–1960), and when it went from radio to television, his popularity – and his audience – continued to grow. He also appeared in several movies in Mexico and Venezuela from 1947 through 1971 and worked in The Amador News, a satirical TV-news parody, in the mid-1960s. In 1968, Bendayán was hired by Radio Caracas Televisión to host Sábado Espectacular, a five-hour marathon variety show which lasted through 1971. A year later he moved to Venevisión, as the show was renamed Sábado Sensacional. Bendayán hosted his show until 1988, a few months before his death in Caracas, aged 68. Gilberto Correa succeeded him as host of the show. Amador Bendayán was the founder and first president of Casa del Artista, a cultural center which is located in a boulevard named after him, in an area next to the Santa Rosa church, a synagogue, and a mosque.

• Misión atómica (1947) • Yo quiero una mujer así (1951) • Seis meses de vida (1951) • Yo y las mujeres (1959) • Si yo fuera millonario [aka If I Were a Millionaire] (1962) • El idolo (1963) • Napoleoncito (1964) • Escuela para solteras (1965) • El Pícaro (1967) • El Reportero [aka The Reporter] (1968) • Departamento de soltero (1971) • O.K. Cleopatra (1971)