NEW YORK — Emilio Delgado, who played the beloved Luis on “Sesame Street” for more than four decades, has died at age 81 after a yearlong battle with blood cancer.
“We are saddened by the news of Emilio’s passing,” Robert Attermann, CEO of A3 Artists Agency, which represented the actor and singer, told the Daily News in a statement Thursday.
Delgado died Thursday at his home in New York City, surrounded by family, his wife Carol Delgado told TMZ.
“Emilio was an immense talent who brought so much joy and smiles to his fans,” Attermann told The News. “He will be missed by many and we know his legacy will live on. Our thoughts are with his loved ones, including his wife, Carole.”
Delgado was best known for the 44 years he spent playing Luis, from 1971 to 2015. He has the “unofficial distinction” of being the longest-running Mexican American character on a U.S. television series, according to his Twitter profile.
Born in Calexico, California, he spent his early years across the border in Mexicali, Mexico, and as a child earned money shining shoes and working in his uncle’s bicycle repair shop while attending elementary school in the U.S.
After graduating from Glendale High School in Los Angeles, he studied acting while performing as a folk singer and guitarist, crooning traditional Spanish boleros with Mexican trios, according to his bio on IMDBpro.
His acting start came in 1968 in the PBS series “Cancion De La Raza” (”Song of The People”) on KCET-LA. When “Sesame Street” brought Latino actors into the fold, he landed the role of Luis, the “Fix-it Shop” owner.
Delgado also had numerous stage roles, including at the Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey, INTAR Theatre, Round House Theatre and Manhattan Theatre Source.
Away from “Sesame Street,” Delgado appeared on several prime-time TV dramas of the ‘70s and ‘80s, including “Lou Grant” “Hawaii Five 5-0,” “Quincy” and “Police Story.”
He worked up until the pandemic began, according to his wife, playing the lead in the theater production “Quixote Nuevo” for a Houston theater company before lockdown called a halt after a three-city run.
He was diagnosed at the end of 2020 with multiple myeloma, a blood cancer, Carol said.
As recently as December, Delgado signed onto the board of directors of the Bayard Rustin Center for Social Justice, a community center for LGBTQ youth in New Jersey, the Asbury Park Press reported.
“It’s just a continuation of whatever it was ‘Sesame Street’ was trying to do with inclusion,” Delgado told the paper, “with showing different kinds of people (and) how they lived differently and they spoke different languages or they ate different food. And it was educating all those kids and families out there that had no idea that there were other people out there that were like this, that were different from themselves.”
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