Sunshine Logroño
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Emmanuel Logroño (born November 1, 1951, in Brooklyn, New York), better known as Sunshine Logroño is a famous Puerto Rican actor, radio announcer, television show host, singer, comedy writer, entrepreneur and comedian. Logroño has enjoyed success on Puerto Rican media for close to three decades.
Born in New York from a Puerto Rican mother, Logroño moved to Puerto Rico along with his family when he was nine years old. He was soon recognized as a multifaceted entertainer by his schoolteachers and classmates. His nickname "Sunshine" came from a short stint (1973) as a disc jockey for WBMJ-AM, Puerto Rico's first rock and roll station (another WBMJ disc jockey at the time, Raymond Broussard, better known as Moonshadow, is currently co-host of El Vacilón de la Mañana, a very popular Spanish language morning radio talk show in New York City). Besides his short stint as a disc jockey, Logroño served as a voice actor for Puerto Rico's then-active dubbing industry. His was the Spanish-language voice for "Little Joe" one of the Cartwright brothers (played by Michael Landon) in the U.S. television show Bonanza.
Logroño obtained a Bachelor in Arts (English Language Literature) degree ("a degree in unemployment", Logroño claims) from the University of Puerto Rico at Río Piedras and a Master of Arts (Theater) degree from Michigan State University. After his return to Puerto Rico, Logroño was a member of the Puerto Rican folk group, Moliendo Vidrio which also starred bandleader Gary Nuñez and later comedic actress Carmen Nydia Velázquez Moliendo Vidrio made a few albums during the 1970s. By the late years of that decade, the group disbanded.
Logroño kept himself busy in the late 1970's as a voice talent for radio commercials, as a comedic actor on Puerto Rican television, and as a radio host. He co-hosted a morning radio program with Puerto Rican entrepreneur and musician Silverio Pérez, and served as part of the comedic team behind Desafiando a los Genios, a popular TV mock quiz show starring, among others, actor, writer and film director Jacobo Morales and Puerto Rico's premiere comedic actor, José Miguel Agrelot. Two of Logroño's TV characters would surface around this time: Agapito Flores, a rather naive country bumpkin with a speech impairment, and Nicky El Bro, a Newyorrican hustler.
Morales and Perez would soon revive, along with actor and radio announcer Horacio Olivo, a musical group named Los Rayos Gamma, Puerto Rico's most beloved political satire troupe which had an extremely short but popular stint in 1968 as the creative vehicle for the late satirical writer and journalist, Eddie López. Logroño filled in for Pérez on vacation, and when Pérez returned, he was allowed to fill in López's shoes (who was considered irreplaceable by some), with great success. Los Rayos Gamma had a television show on channel 7, where they satirized politicians with their songs to high ratings -and, which would be taken off the air due to their rather direct satirical jabs at the then governor of Puerto Rico, Carlos Romero Barceló. They went on to make a few albums and would return to the public spotlight in roughly four-year intervals, coinciding with each general election in Puerto Rico.
After Los Rayos Gamma's TV show was yanked off the air, Sunshine kept active, doing voice-overs for commercials (at one time half of all radio commercials in Puerto Rico featured Logroño's talents in one way or another) and making appearances at several TV shows and radio programs. At one of these shows the comedic characters of Eleuterio Quiñones and his son Elpidio were born. Eleuterio Quiñones, a die-hard supporter of Puerto Rican statehood whose grasp of public affairs and general culture level would be best compared to those of Archie Bunker in the U.S., and his son Elpidio -a 38-year old special education patient with the emotional age of a child but with rather stunning reproductive organs - are still a staple of Puerto Rican radio and television. Logroño also developed his own audio production company, Man-TK Records (Man-TK being a pun on manteca, the Spanish word for lard. Logroño's work is filled with porcine references throughout his career).
In 1989 Logroño began hosting a show named Sunshine's Cafe on WAPA-TV. Sunshine's Cafe was very popular among Puerto Rico's tv viewers and its risqué sense of humor guaranteed four seasons of high ratings and extreme controversy. Sunshine played many characters, including a clever closet homosexual named Vitín Alicea Arévalo, and many of his phrases became household sayings.
In 1991, Logrono had a chance to star in a Hollywood movie: he acted opposite Martin Short and Kurt Russell in Captain Ron. He claims to appear in the movie Contact, alongside Jodie Foster, but actually -thanks to the rather extreme talents of the film's editor, Logroño claims- only his left elbow appears on the screen.
According to an interview that Logroño gave Vea one time, one day, he arrived at his office to learn there was an audition for another movie. By his own account, he caught a flight to New York City, made the audition, and flew back to Puerto Rico, arriving just in time to participate at a play in Mayagüez.
Logrono attempted to show his serious actor side in the late 1990s, participating in various theater plays.
He was the host of a show named De Noche Con Sunshine (At Night With Sunshine). in the big network switch of 2000 Sunshine switched to WAPA and he's currently the host of a show named "Club Sunshine". He is also the vice-president for talent affairs of the television station.
