Trejo to start 17th World’s Shortest St. Patrick’s Day Parade
Actor Danny Trejo, known for playing the bad guy in dozens of movies and television shows — not to mention Snickers commercials — who struck gold with the Machete series of films portraying an avenging antihero, will be the official starter of the First Ever 17th Annual World’s Shortest St. Patrick’s Day Parade.
“With Danny Trejo as our official starter, that ought to scare off all the pretenders to the title of World’s Shortest St. Patrick’s Day Parade,” Steve Arrison, CEO of Visit Hot Springs, said in a news release announcing the selection. “If they insist that their pseudo-parades are shortest, we will just email them a photo of Mister Trejo, and that should be enough to change their minds.”
The parade spans the 98-foot length of Bridge Street and has been held annually in Hot Springs since 2003.
According to the release, Trejo developed a prolific career in the entertainment industry with a hard-earned and atypical road to success. From years of imprisonment to helping youths battle drug addictions, from acting to producing, and now on to restaurant ventures, Trejo’s name, face, and achievements are well recognized in Hollywood and beyond.
“I love playing the bad guy in movies, because the bad guy always dies,” Trejo said. “That’s the real world. If someone asked me to play a bad guy that always gets away with it, I’d pass. That’s the very message I preach to youths who are in crisis and in trouble: The bad guy always loses and the good guy always wins. It’s the one thing movies and real life see eye-to-eye on.”
Trejo grew up on the streets of Los Angeles. Despite spending the latter part of his early adulthood incarcerated, he has worked hard to maintain a drug-free and positive lifestyle, and he celebrates over 50 years of sobriety. On his release from Soledad Prison, he became involved in programs aimed at helping those who, like him, battled drug and alcohol addictions, the release said.
Years into his journey as a drug and alcohol counselor, Trejo visited the set of the movie “Runaway Train” to offer support to a man he’d been counseling. After arriving on the set, Trejo was immediately offered a role as a convict, it said.
Since then, he has gone on to star in dozens of films including “Desperado,” “Heat,” with Robert De Niro and Al Pacino, the “From Dusk to Dawn” film series, “Con Air” with Nicolas Cage,
“Once Upon a Time in Mexico” with Johnny Depp, and the “Spy Kids” movies. An appearance in Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino’s “Grindhouse” led to a spinoff movie based on the original trailers called “Machete,” in which Trejo plays an ex-federale with a gift for wielding a blade.
The success of “Machete” spawned a sequel, “Machete Kills,” which boasts a star-studded cast, including Mel Gibson, Charlie Sheen and Amber Heard. Trejo then co-starred in “Death Race: Inferno,” in which he reprised his role as Goldberg from “Death Race 2.”
On television, Trejo reunited with Robert Rodriguez for Miramax’s “From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series.” He held recurring roles on “Sons of Anarchy” and “King of the Hill,” “Breaking Bad” and “The Flash” and has been featured in episodes of “Blue Bloods,” “What We Do in the Shadows,” “Brooklyn Nine-Nine” and “Kidding.”
He also made that infamous Snickers commercial that aired during the Super Bowl in 2015, playing the alter ego of an outof-sorts Marcia Brady whose poor attitude is cured with one bite on the candy bar.
According to the release, the actor recently expanded his Trejo’s Tacos empire by adding a location at Southwest Airlines’ Terminal 1 at Los Angeles International Airport and recently opened a new location at the Original Farmer’s Market.
Trejo is the seventh official parade starter the parade has welcomed in its 17-year history.