New York – Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony, who in real life are husband and wife, are also a couple in the first feature film on the life of tropical music icon Hector Lavoe, on which shooting began Monday in New York.
“El Cantante” (The singer), which will hit the big screen next fall, is directed by Cuban-born filmmaker Leon Ichaso and stars Marc Anthony in the lead role of Lavoe, known as the “singer of singers,” and Lopez as his wife, Puchi.
Lavoe was one of the biggest Spanish-language singers during the 1970s, but personal tragedy and addiction to heroin left him penniless toward the end of his relatively short life.
The independently financed film is being produced by Nuyorican Productions, a firm set up by Lopez, Ichaso, Julio Caro, Simon Fields and David Maldonado.
Early Monday morning in freezing temperatures, the film team began working along 6th Avenue, where hundreds of onlookers and fans of Lopez and Marc Anthony gathered – although they were kept at quite a distance by security personnel – to gawk at their idols.
The filming got started in front of a store known as Rainbow, just a short distance from Madison Square Garden, where Lavoe, a salsa singer with an unmatched talent for improvisation and a crystal clear voice, appeared many times with the Estrellas de Fania.
Onlookers snapped photos of the activities.
“They started filming early and, because it was cold, they did so in the store’s entryway. She was very close to me, and only the glass door separated me from her,” a Guatemalan Rainbow employee, Patricio Sir, told EFE, referring to Lopez.
“The store opens at 9:30 a.m., but we had to arrive two hours before that and they were already starting to set up their equipment,” added Sir, who bought a cowboy jacket for his girlfriend in the hope that Lopez would sign it for him.
He said that his girlfriend is a big fan of Lopez and he wanted to get the latter’s autograph, although only a little 8-year-old girl was able to do so, with the cooperation of the film crew. The actress signed her name on a card for the youngster.
“Jennifer is sensational,” said Sir, who added that although Lopez didn’t sign the jacket, he did manage to shake Marc Anthony’s hand.
Anthony watched the members of the public who milled around near the filming site, waving to and greeting them before he began working with the film crew, which pulled up stakes and moved over in front of Madison Square Garden to carry out more work in the afternoon.
“El Cantante,” which will continue shooting in New York until January and will then move to Puerto Rico in February for more filming, portrays the life and career of Hector Juan Perez, whom the salsa world knows as Hector Lavoe. Marc Anthony, himself a wildly popular singer, is one of Lavoe’s admirers.
“It’s a honor to have the chance to present the story of one of the greatest idols of Latino music. I grew up on and was an admirer of his music and to be part of this project fills me with a lot of satisfaction,” Anthony said in a communique.
“It’s a dream turned into reality to be able to play one of my idols,” he added.
Lopez, although she was observed on several occasions trembling with the cold, worked steadily, repeating the takes of the scene being shot – where she stops in front of the store window and looks at her reflection in the glass – as many times as requested by the director.
Some girls in the crowd shouted her name, trying to get her to look their way so they could take pictures of her.
Lavoe was born in the southern Puerto Rican city of Ponce and in 1963, at age 17, he came to New York, where he set about becoming a performing legend. He wanted to make his living as a singer and lived with his sister Priscilla – a role played by Romi Dias – in the city’s Spanish Harlem neighborhood.
He hit the big time in the 1970s, shooting to the top of the Latino music scene when trombonist Willie Colon – played in the film by John Ortiz – formed his band which, for the first time, fused the roots of Puerto Rican music with salsa.
Lavoe’s seven years with Colon were filled with countless musical successes.
Among the numbers that made him famous were “Hacha y machete,” “Piraña,” “De ti depende,” “Periodico de ayer” and “Rompe saraguey.”
Known as “salsa’s bad boy,” Lavoe became addicted to heroin. He died in 1993 at the age of 46, reportedly of AIDS.
