Astrologer and TV star was popular across Latin America
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — Television astrologer Walter Mercado, 87, whose glamorous persona made him a star in Latin media and a cherished icon for gay people in most of the Spanish-speaking world, has died.
Mercado was known throughout Latin America for the melodrama of his daily horoscopes, delivered on internationally broadcast networks such as Univision with an exaggerated trilling of the “r.” He favored colorful brocaded capes and huge gemstone rings, which he flashed while pointing at viewers.
Mercado never publicly discussed his sexual orientation, but his screen presence was a source of comfort for many people in lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual communities throughout Latin American and Latin communities in the U.S., said Alex Fumero, a Los Angelesbased producer who has spent two years working on a documentary about him.
“This is a culture that’s been dominated by machismo and homophobia for a very long time,” Fumero said in a phone interview. “He was really brave.”
Fumero said Mercado’s silence on his orientation may have allowed him to keep the adoration of LGBTQ fans and maintain acceptance from conservative Latins who could have rejected an openly gay television star.
Fumero said one LGBTQ activist told him, “You don’t ask about what you can see,” adding that he believes that was the attitude held by many from Mercado’s generation.
“It’s the plausible deniability that chauvinist or homophobic audiences need in order to give Walter the pass that they needed to enjoy the message he was sending them,” Fumero said.
Fumero said he grew up watching Mercado and recalled his grandmother shushing him every time the astrologer delivered his predictions: “If Walter was on TV, everybody had to be quiet.”
A hospital spokeswoman said Sunday that Mercado died of kidney failure at the Auxilio Mutuo Hospital in San Juan late Saturday. He had been living in the suburb of Cupey and had spent several days in the hospital before his death.
Mercado was born in Ponce, Puerto Rico. Although he took university courses in pharmacology, psychology and pedagogy, he became a well-known dancer and theater actor and also appeared in several soap operas.
He worked briefly for TV stations based in the U.S. Caribbean territory before moving to South Florida, where he joined Univision.
Mercado, whose popularity began to soar in the 1980s, had a collection of more than 2,000 capes, including some with feathers, precious stones and unique embroideries.
His best-known catch phrase was “Above all, lots and lots of love.”
“He is one of those people who used his celebrity and power to reach millions in order to inspire people with good messages,” said Aida Levitan, who helped organize an exhibition in August at the HistoryMiami Museum to honor Mercado.
Mercado, however, also faced some legal battles. In 1998, he got in trouble for endorsing alleged health and beauty products and was named in a class-action lawsuit that accused him of misleading people into buying beads with supposed special powers. The president of the jewelry company, Unique Gems International Corp., was later sentenced to 14 years in prison for defrauding 16,000 people in a $90 million scam.
In October 2010, Mercado announced he was changing his name to Shanti Ananda. That same year, he stopped shooting his segment for the Univision Spanish-language TV channel. Months later, he began to deliver daily horoscopes through El Nuevo Herald newspaper in Miami.