Why was Gaspar Henaine called “Capulina”

Gaspar Henaine adopted the artistic nickname Capulina long after starting his career in entertainment, as he first refused to be called in a way that made him angry.

Capulina began her career from music, since first she was part of a quartet called The Eccentric of Rhythm, later, she joined the trio Los Trincas. With this second group he gained more attention, managing to appear in different shows and also on the radio.

Because of the sympathy with which he always treated his colleagues, in addition to making his audience laugh despite not dedicating himself to comedy, he caught the attention of some filmmakers, who saw him talent to bring his creativity to the big screen.

During his first appearances in the cinema he did not bear any stage name, but called himself Gaspar, however, during one of his performances with Los trincas, while he was tap-dancing on stage as he used to, a man shouted at him: “Move, capulina!” , which caused a lot of laughs because it came from a joke known at the time.

As Henaine recalled in Socketed Stories, “capulina” comes from a joke about a boy, who took a dog to play that was his girlfriend. While he was with the dog, an annoyed policeman came and asked him what he was supposed to be doing.

The infant questioned whether by chance the dog was his own, to which the officer replied no. Then, the boy asked if the street belonged to him or was there anything in his game that had to do with him, to which the policeman had to answer again denying.

The two of them were fed up, so the boy decided to tell him: “Then move, capulina”, talking to the dog so that she would continue playing with him.

Gaspar didn't have an artistic alias in mind and, in fact, it bothered him that at that time he wasn't called by his name, that he had been compared to a dog, that they were mocking that he was tap-dancing and that the fact that they called him “capulina” caused everyone to laugh.

The then singer was so angry that he wanted to confront the person who called him that, because he knew him; however, people repeated the anecdote and began to call him Capulina, so he began to get attached to the nickname and eventually adopted it.

Capulina for a long time had a grudge against the person who nicknamed him that way, but later, when he catapulted his fame with that nickname, he was grateful to him until the end of his life.

He confessed that if he had met this man again after having been successful in the cinema, he would surely have gathered enough keys to make him a statue, like the monument they made for Pope John Paul II in 2007.

In The Witch Sucked Them (1958), Henaine's first film with Marco Antonio Campos, Viruta, already had his stage name, so since then they began to be called Chip and Capulina. It was in this way that both rose to success.

The copla went on to make more than 30 films together before their regrettable split, but it was thanks to the achievements they earned as Viruta and Capulina that they continued their careers in solitary with the support of a loyal public.

In the 1960s, when it became clear that their separation would be forever, Gaspar was able to continue sowing successes like Capulina, however, Viruta did not have the same fate.

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