Mario Kreutzberger (Don Francisco)

Not to be confused with Contemporary Christian Music artist Don Francisco, best known for his song He's Alive.

Don Francisco.

Don Francisco, (real name Mario Luis Kreutzberger Blumenfeld), (born December 28, 1940 in Talca) is a Chilean famous television presenter who lives in Florida, USA. He is the founder of the Chilean Teletón which holds a major event yearly broadcasted on TV with a live show with invited artists with the goal of having donations for the instituion which is run privately.

He is well known and respected along the Hispanic community in the US.

Life

Mario Kreutzberger's parents are German Jews who were persecuted and expelled from Germany during the National Socialist era, his father was a prisoner in Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. They managed to escape to Chile, where his father ran a small clothing store.

Mario Kreutzberger grew up bilingual, he has retained the German language and learned Spanish at school. He already used the stage name Don Francisco as a teenager when he performed as a comedian in a Jewish club in Santiago de Chile. His parents sent him to New York City for an apprenticeship as a tailor, but he returned after two years to pursue a career in television instead.

The character of Don Francisco was born as a result of an imitation of a German Jewish man who lived in Chile and could not speak Spanish well. During the beginning of his career, Mr. Kreutzberger appeared at the Macabí cultural club in a "stand up comedy" to emulate Francisco, the character who surprisingly was the one who accompanied him for the rest of his life.

Some time later, he applied for a television program as a joke teller; he was asked for his name to which he answered Mario Kreutzberger and he was immediately told that with that name he would not get anywhere. So, from that moment on, Don Francisco came to life.

In 1959, Don Erick, a tailor by trade, sent him to New York at the age of 18 to study the trade of Model Technician - cutting and sewing of men's clothing - and later to collaborate with Don Erick in his costume factory from 1962 to 1976.

Mario found his vocation in television after the trip to New York in 1959. His return coincided with the arrival of television and the 1962 World Cup, and he knew that this was his future. With perseverance he made his way in this new medium that was beginning to expand in his country.

From 1962, he established the Saturday evening show Sábado Gigante on Chilean television, which was watched by 80 percent of Chileans in the mid-1980s. At the same time, he produced a second show with an American broadcaster in Miami from 1986 under the same title. Kreutzberger moved to Miami and only produced there.

In 1986, after several attempts to internationalize, Sábado Gigante began airing on WLTV-Channel 23, in the city of Miami. Joaquín Blaya, at that time the top executive of SIN, Spanish International Network -currently UNIVISION- gave it the opportunity to enter Hispanic television in the United States and in April 1986, the first "Sábado Gigante" was aired for the Latino audience in the United States. From the beginning -1986- until 1988-, this new version of the program was hosted by Cuban actor Rolando Barral (1939-2002), who at the beginning co-hosted the show, since -at that time- he was a perfect stranger for that audience. Shortly thereafter, and due to the success obtained in ratings and sales, its broadcasting was extended to the entire United States and Latin America through the Univision Network, the most important Spanish-speaking network that paid him 15.5 million dollars per year, and it was also broadcasted to the rest of the Spanish-speaking world through Galavision, to a total of 43 countries.

In 1992 and then in 2003, the "Guinness Book of World Records" recognized "Sábado Gigante" as the longest-running television program in America. Then, in 2006, when it celebrated 44 years on television, it was awarded the certificate as the "World's longest-running variety program, created and animated without interruption by Mario Kreutzberger".

This mark - record - was published in the 2007 edition, edited in 27 languages and distributed worldwide. Don Francisco has interviewed close to 80,000 people, including ordinary people, famous actors and presidents, and has visited more than 152 countries with his traveling camera.

At its peak, the show reached almost 100 million viewers in America, including two million in the United States. In September 2015, the Guinness Book of Records's longest-running television show came to an end.

The show, which was eventually reduced back to three hours of airtime, also featured internationally known artists and top U.S. politicians who were interviewed by Don Francisco in order to reach Hispanics as voters. In 2012, Don Francisco hosted the Chilean version of Save the Million!, Atrapa los Millones. He also organized special broadcasts to mobilize donations for disaster victims.

Kreutzberger has been married to Teresa Muchnick since 1963 and they have three children. His daughter Vivi Kreutzberger became an actress and also appeared in the family show.

Don Francisco has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (7018 Hollywood Blvd.).