Front Burner - The enduring magic of iconic astrologer Walter Mercado

Episode Date: July 17, 2020

Puerto Rican TV personality Walter Mercado wasn’t just one of the world’s most famous astrologers — for his millions of viewers, he was a spiritual guide, motivational speaker, and a bedazzled fashion icon. And for generations of queer Latino kids, his refusal to conform to gender norms was a sign that they, too, could be adored and accepted. Today, Kareem Tabsch, co-director of the new Netflix documentary Mucho Mucho Amor: The Legend of Walter Mercado, gives us an intimate look at the larger-than-life performer in the last years of his life — and explores why, even after his death, Mercado is resonating with a whole new generation.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hi, I'm Josh Bloch. El señor Walter Mercado, the larger-than-life Puerto Rican TV personality and queer icon, is quite possibly the most famous astrologer in the world.

Not just for Spanish-speaking audiences. His horoscopes and fabulous bedazzled outfits beamed into living rooms in Italy, Brazil, Holland, and the U.S. And all his segments ended with the same blessing. Mucho, mucho amor. Mucho, mucho, mucho, mucho. Amor. Amor.

But when Walter Mercado was at the height of his fame, he basically disappeared, and his beloved mystical TV segments disappeared with him. Now a new documentary is sharing an intimate look at what happened to Walter Mercado, and why, even after his death, he's resonating with a whole new generation. Karim Tabj is the co-director of the Netflix documentary Mucho Mucho Amor,

The Legend of Walter Mercado. And he joins me now. This is Frontburner. Hello, Karim. Hi there. So some people have not been blessed with the knowledge of who Walter Mercado is. And actually, until very recently, I didn't know either. So for those of us who don't know, who was Walter Mercado?

I always feel bad for people who didn't get the chance to grow up knowing him. You know, we like to describe Walter, imagine one part Mr. Rogers, one part Oprah, but dressed as Liberace. Growing up with Walter Mercado, I just remember thinking how dramatic he was. And how fabulous he was. And that's kind of what Walter Mercado is.

He's this kind of fabulous, over-the-top personality that commanded your attention every day for decades when he was beamed into our homes via television with his daily astrological predictions. Geminis. Pisces. Cancer. Aries. Capricorn, Aquarius, Scorpio. And though they were, you know, in essence,

it was the horoscope that he was sharing, ultimately he was imparting these words of wisdom and inspiration and love and hope. And if you were the, you know i was the child of latino immigrants in the u.s it was uh it was hugely impactful to hear and see him he had the rare ability of shutting us all up for five minutes and it was appointment viewing and it might you know if you talked during walter mercado's segment you were looking for a smack from your grandma upside the head because we hung on his every word. And he was just this wonderful beam of light and an intricate part of our culture.

I mean, I think it's important for people to understand how he looked. I mean, you mentioned Liberace. He would wear these extravagant capes. For every show, I have a special cape or robe. Some are very heavy, some are lighter, some are hand-painted. This fabulous jewelry. He had a trademark hairstyle. I mean, how would you describe the Walter Mercado aesthetic? I mean, you know, I would say it was these extravagant, intricate robes with tons of sequins and lace and italic prints, sometimes all at the same time. Many designers started doing cave for him.

Versace did something for him. Isaac Mizrani, Swarovski, crystals, sequins, rhinestone, pearls. They cost a lot of money, but they were beautiful. Lacquered on makeup, feathered hair. And his hair is a hybrid between really good male hair from the 70s and really good glamorous grandma hair. It was really, really ornate and extravagant and over the top. You know, we compare him to Liberace,

but, you know, I don't think Liberace could hold a candle. Walter came from the Moore's Moore School of Thought, and he certainly wore it all. I found myself watching your film with this goofy smile on my face because he has this infectious joy and this enthusiasm for life. And also it was so fun to watch people responding to him.

I mean, they would just light up when they were in the same room as him. It's really true. It's hard to describe the energy he had around him. It's funny. We spent two years filming with him in the making of the documentary, and we came very, very close, and we saw him kind of just in tip-top shape, and we saw him towards the end of his life,

and he never lost that magnetism. It was such an intricate part of who he was, and it never stopped being special. Even as close as we got to him. You always kind of knew you were in the presence of someone special when you were with him. And I think that he had the rare ability to transmit that energy and that special vibe that he had through the television, which is no small feat. Since the moment I was born, I know that I was not like everybody. When I saw another voice, I know that I have another way of life. My mother said, if you are different, go on being different.

Don't worry about that. To be different is a gift. To be ordinary is common. He never publicly stated how he identified, but many people read him as queer. And he did talk about embracing his femininity and not being kind of tied to conventional gender norms. What did that mean for his LGBTQ fans, especially young people that were growing up in the 70s and 80s? Yeah, I mean, you know, this is a really kind of important part of Walter's legacy. You know, for myself, as a young queer Latino boy growing up in the suburbs, inner city

really of Miami, seeing Walter was so, I mean, it was such a special moment. You know, Walter looked the way I felt. such a special moment. You know, Walter looked the way I felt. You know, he came on television with his capes and his makeup and his hair and all his kind of fabulousness. And in my case, and I think for a lot of people, what I saw was his otherness. He was different and he was different in a way that I was different.

Growing up as a queer boy and watching Walter Mercado gave me hope. I saw Walter and I was like, OK, I'm not that different. And he was seemingly happy and fabulous and looked successful and looked wealthy. And more importantly, he was beloved, right? My family adored him. And if they could love Walter being so different, being so out there, being so other in a way that

I felt I was other, then maybe they could love me. And seeing that is hugely impactful. It stayed with me my entire life. In the process of making the film, we came across archival material from decades back where he was talking about, you know, the fact that the future will not have a gender, that, you know, gender is a construct that only exists in our minds. And he self-identified as this blending of energies is what he would say of masculinity and femininity. I mean, it was really ahead of its time and it was subversive and it was really sub of its time, and it was subversive, and it was really subversive. I think it helped many people feel seen. He has a very feminine energy.

He's an androgen. He looks like a woman. Sometimes he looks like a man. The people that, you know, they said, oh, that's queer, that's... I don't care. He doesn't care. Walter always take a pill called an I Don't Care pill. And I started drinking that pill too. In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection.

Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. Hi, it's Ramit Sethi here. You may have seen my money show on Netflix. I've been talking about money for 20 years. I've talked to millions of people, and I have some startling numbers to share with you. I've talked to millions of people and I have some startling numbers to share with you.

Did you know that of the people I speak to, 50% of them do not know their own household income? That's not a typo. 50%. That's because money is confusing. In my new book and podcast, Money for Couples, I help you and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Cops. Well, I want to go back because in the film you capture this fascinating mythology around his upbringing and his rise to fame. He grew up in Ponce, Puerto Rico, in a farming family. in a farming family.

And in the documentary, you describe this sort of fantastical story that he says made it clear to his family and to his community that he was different. Can you tell me about Walter's discovery of this special gift? Yeah, so, you know, as Walter likes to tell it, he was a young boy in the sugarcane fields, which is where he grew up in Ponce.

And there was a bird that had fallen from the sky. And he was dying. And I took the bird and I began to pray and to giving life to that bird. And I said, you are going to live, little bird, you are going to live. And suddenly the bird started to flap its wings and started to get better. He said, you are going to live, little bird. You are going to live. And suddenly the bird started to flap its wings and started to get better and it began to fly. And a neighbor was watching and said, oh my gosh, this boy has special gifts

and started talking about it in the village. And that's kind of, as he describes it, it's the origins of his knowing he was magical. Now, as filmmakers and proud skeptics, I have to say, I'm not so sure that we completely buy the story. But it doesn't ultimately matter because it's Walter's truth and it's part of Walter's legend and his legacy. So my mother put me in a little chair and they began touching me. Touch, touch, touch, touch, touch.

And then I turned into Walter of the Miracles. We do know that as a young man, he goes on to study dance. He becomes a telenovela actor. And he kind of stumbles into this career as an astrologer almost by accident. That's right. He was invited to a show, El Show de las Doce, which is a midday kind of entertainment program. He was going on in costume to promote a play he was doing. And the host got a last-minute cancellation from another guest and said to Walter,

I need your help filling time. You're always talking about astrology around here. Why don't you just talk about astrology? And so Walter, off the cuff, started talking about the stars and the horoscopes. I began to talk, but in a very improvised way, from my heart. For 15 minutes, I was in a monologue. Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, the Moon, Leo, you are the Sun, Virgo, Mercury, Libra, Venus. So it was like, but nobody expected that.

And he was in, basically in a trance, in a monologue that lasted 15 minutes. And the telephone lines at the television station started lining up, people calling and demanding to know more. When the segment finished, the general manager of Telemundo came downstairs running and said,

he has to do that show again tomorrow because people are calling the Telephone lines are full and so he was invited back the next day and then again the day after that It was in three months. He had his own one-hour television show in Puerto Rico Well, and then he meets this man Bill Bakula who really takes career, takes him from being a local celebrity in Puerto Rico to becoming probably the world's most famous astrologer. Every talent needs somebody behind them. I was the coach for one single purpose,

Walter's message to get out to as many people as possible. Can you describe just how big does Walter get? At his peak, Walter had a viewership of 120 million people a day. Wow. The kind of best way to describe it is if you took any given day,

Walter would be in the newspaper with the horoscope columns, in a magazine with monthly columns. He would have his horoscopes on drive time radio. And then he would have his afternoon segment on Primer Impacto, which was broadcast all throughout North, Central and South America. There used to be this newscast called Primer Impacto on Univision.

And every day at 5.47 in the afternoon, they would have the daily astrological forecast with Walter Mercado. They didn't have the weather forecast. They had an astrological forecast. He would be a guest on talk shows and variety shows. You're bigger than Jesus Christ, aren't you? No. Tell the truth. They treat me like Jesus or like Buddha.

And then at night, he would be parodied in the comedy shows. He was just a ubiquitous part of Latino and Latin American culture. You really couldn't turn a page or turn a channel without encountering Walter Mercado. And in fact, his show is then broadcast internationally. I mean, he shows up, he's in Holland. You know, he's really across the world. Yeah, absolutely. You know, he couldn't go places.

One of the stories that we couldn't include in the documentary that always tells me how big he was, somehow someone caught wind that Walter was landing in Mexico City Airport. And the airport was so mobbed that they had to close it down. It's astounding. So, now he has millions of people around the world watching him. And he's not just reading horoscopes. I mean, he's really providing this kind of spiritual guidance. And it was so interesting to hear how his guidance is really drawn from all these different sources, from different religions and philosophies. Can you describe what his message was? Yeah, I mean, Walter used kind of a melange of different belief systems and faiths, mixed them all together to kind of transmit this message of ultimately love and peace. But at the core of his message was one of inspiration. You know, he told us that he knew today was difficult, but tomorrow would be better.

And, you know, in immigrant communities where I think he was probably most famous and most beloved, immigrant communities where I think he was probably most famous and most beloved, that's incredibly powerful. You know, so many folks like our families and my co-director, Christina Costantini and producer Alex Cameros, we all had the same experience. We were the children of immigrants. Our parents were working long. Our grandparents had taken care of us. Days were difficult. Sometimes resources and food could be scarce. But here came this wizard onto our television that said, I know today is tough, but tomorrow will be a be scarce. But here came this wizard onto our television that said, I know today is tough, but tomorrow will be a better day. It meant the world to us.

Well, he has such influence, in fact, that he was even criticized for possibly taking advantage of people. At one point, he sets up a hotline that people can call into, and I think he has something like 4,000 psychics on standby. He was making a lot of money from that hotline. What did you discover about the kind of criticism that he may in fact be taking advantage of people who are vulnerable? You know, I think that what we discovered in the process of making a film

is that while there was a lot of money made by that, it wasn't necessarily all being made by Walter. But it is a part of his legacy that we have to contend with and which we ask him about. I never say, you're going to win a lottery. Never. Or you're going to have a husband in a week. I never try to fool people. No, I never.

A lot of these hotlines are scams. They used to say you were doing it to make money off of poor, desperate people. But always they received some kind of words of inspiration or motivation. You know, at the end of the day, Walter was a human being. And as human beings, we do wonderful, great things, but we are also flawed. And I think that in retrospect, Walter would not do it again, if he had the chance to make it over. And I don't think he was particularly proud of it. So we deal with it in the film. But I think it's important to look at it in the context of his entire life and career. Well, what do you think motivated him?

I mean, he clearly loved the fame and the adoration, but it also seemed like he truly connected with people and enjoyed being around people. I mean, Walter had an amazing sense of self. There's no doubt that he loved himself, but he always loved you more. And that's the astounding thing about him. I think being with his public, seeing how he was able to impact people, knowing that

his power was in making people feel better, that meant the world to him. It was really, really important. And ultimately, I think that that was what his real job was. So Walter Mercado enjoyed this incredible success for years. But then in the mid-2000s, his life takes a real turn. And I'll let people watch the film to find out what happened. But let's just say there were major legal problems and health problems. And he essentially just disappears. And he leaves millions of people wondering what happened. So a few years ago, when when you start working on this documentary, and you meet Walter, what did his life look like?

He had lived, you know, somewhat of a kind of a hermit like life his home in rural puerto rico became his entire world he was only really spending time with his close family and friends and he'd retreated from the limelight yet he would never describe it that way he would always say i'm just taking a little break that break had lasted more than a decade but when we approached him with the idea of making a documentary you know first of all he loved being on camera he loved the lights it gave him energy gave him i think purpose in a way so he was eager to do it uh but at the same time i don't think he completely grasped what a documentary was what do you mean he would say things to to me like kareem when am I getting the script?

And I'd say, Walter, there's no script. It's a documentary. We're going to follow you around. We're going to ask you questions. We're going to show people who the man behind the cape was. And so we would record him eating breakfast or hanging out with his dog or reading a book. And he would often say to us, this is so boring. Nobody is going to want to

watch this. You know, his preference was what he did all the time, which was, you know, two cameras into camera, five minutes, he was in control. He was the one who talked about what he wanted to talk about. And here are these three young filmmakers coming over and saying, that's great, but we're also going to want to talk to you about the things you don't want to talk about. And here are these three young filmmakers coming over and saying, that's great, but we're also going to want to talk to you about the things you don't want to talk about. We're also going to want to show you without makeup on and without the capes on. It was a difficult thing for him to grasp. Well, he seems so meticulous about his public image. Do you feel like it was difficult to let you see the man behind the cape?

difficult to let you see the man behind the cape? You know, I think it was very difficult for him to kind of let the aesthetic guard down and to let himself be vulnerable. A story we like to tell is in the middle of production, his grand nephew had a baby. And the baby was five weeks old, and they were bringing her over to the house to meet him. And Walter would not let the five-week-old baby into his bedroom until he had his hair done and a full face of makeup, because he wanted any image that that baby had to be of Walter. He wanted his outside to always look like his inside. But, you know, the longer we spent time with him, look like it's inside. But you know, the longer we spent time with him, what was evident is that the Walter you saw on television was the Walter who was there when the cameras were off.

Yeah, Walter doesn't reveal his age in the documentary. It doesn't seem like he likes to talk about his age. He says he's somewhere between 50 and death. You do spend a significant amount of time exploring this theme of mortality and aging. And on the one hand, Walter really seemed to struggle with the deterioration of his body and his health. But he also talks about being unafraid of death. Yeah, I mean, you know, when we started to make the film, we were making this film about our childhood icon, what his life was like now, what we didn't realize is that in the process of that, we were going to be documenting an aging body and the onset of illness that comes as one gets older. I think that it wasn't necessarily

a fear of death. I think it was a sadness over losing this wonderful thing he had. And, you know, losing this wonderful thing he had. And, you know, even when he was very ill, he was always optimistic and always ambitious. We were with him five weeks before he passed. And he was still talking about the projects he was going to be doing next year. He was telling us about the book he was writing. At no point did he kind of ever give up on the idea of life. There's this beautiful moment that you capture in your film where the journalist Jorge Ramos is interviewing Walter and Jorge says, I'm an agnostic, but he asks Walter really sincerely,

what happens after we die? Just tell me about that moment. Walter was not doing so well that day. I think you can kind of see it in the film. And when Jorge asks him, you know, what happens when we die? I'm an agnostic. Walter's answer is very Walter. He said, good, good you're agnostic.

You'll have surprises. And he describes this as, you know, our body is just a cage. It's just a holding cell for a part of us that is eternal. When we die, our body are atoms and molecules, and they'll return to the Earth. But that that's inside of us is eternal and will keep on going. So you think that we'll be there without our body? Yes, until you're reincarnated.

Because I believe, not believe, I know that there is reincarnation. Well, I mean, I think that is sort of what struck me about that moment, is that on the one hand, Jorge is saying, oh, I don't believe in this. I don't believe in a god. But yet, and maybe this speaks to Walter's just broad appeal. You could sense how much he wanted an answer from Walter and really was turning to Walter for an answer. I think, you know, as filmmakers, myself, Christina and Alex,

we're all non-believers. We don't believe in astrology. We don't really believe in God. But we believe in Walter. We believe in his ability to make us feel better. And what more could you ask for? Karim, thank you so much for speaking with me today. Thank you so much for having me.

I appreciate it. Mucha paz. Pero sobre todo, ¿qué? Mucho, mucho, mucho, mucho amor. Thank you. Vanderwick. Mandy Sham does our sound design with help from Mac Cameron. Our music is by Joseph Chabison of Boombox Sound. The executive producer of Frontburner this week was Shannon Higgins. I'm Josh Bloch. Thanksbc.ca slash podcasts.