Cheech Marin named grand marshal of St. Pat’s Parade
Actor and comedian Cheech Marin, one-half of the classic comedy team Cheech & Chong, will serve as the grand marshal of the First Ever 17th Annual World’s Shortest St. Patrick’s Day Parade, Visit Hot Springs announced Sunday morning.
“Cheech will fit in perfectly with the zany, fun-for-all atmosphere that defines the World’s Shortest St. Patrick’s Day Parade,” Steve Arrison, CEO of Visit Hot Springs, said in a news release.
Marin is also an accomplished director, writer, musician, art collector and humanitarian, as well as a cultural icon, the release said. Six of the Cheech & Chong albums went gold, four were nominated for Grammys, and “Los Cochinos” won the 1973 Grammy for Best Comedy Recording.
The stoner duo of Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong starred in eight feature films together, but they later split, and during that time Marin wrote, directed, and starred in the comedy “Born in East L.A.” He appeared in over 25 films, including his “scene-stealing role” in “Tin Cup,” and in eight films directed by Robert Rodriguez, according to a biography provided by Visit Hot Springs.
Of particular note, Marin starred in several films alongside the parade’s official starter, Danny Trejo, including “Desperado,” “Machete” and “From Dusk Till Dawn.”
On television, Cheech was a sitcom regular before joining Don Johnson on the CBS drama “Nash Bridges”
“Through his popular Disney Pixar animated film roles (‘Oliver & Company,’ ‘The Lion King’ and ‘Cars’) and as an author of children’s books such as Cheech the School Bus Driver, Cheech is also a
favorite with kids and parents around the world,” the biography said.”
Cheech is also recognized today as a preeminent Chicano art advocate. In the mid-1980s, he began developing what is now arguably the finest private collection of Chicano art. Much of it formed the core of his inaugural exhibition, ‘Chicano Visions: American Painters on the Verge,’ which broke attendance records during its groundbreaking 15 city U.S. tour,” the biography said.
Following the success of “Chicano Visions,” 13 additional exhibitions drawn from the Cheech Marin Collection have toured more than 50 major art museums across the United States and in Europe under the direction of Melissa Richardson Banks.
“Furthering his goal to introduce Chicano art to a wider audience, Marin has entered into a partnership with the City of Riverside and Riverside Art Museum to create the national Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art, Culture and Industry, aka ‘The Cheech’ (www.TheCheechCenter. org). Slated to open in 2021, The Cheech will become the permanent home for his more than 700 works of Chicano art, including paintings, sculptures and photography; collectively, the most renowned Chicano art collection in the United States,” it said.