After 2 pandemic postponements, Trejo ready to start
After two postponements because of the pandemic, actor Danny Trejo has again agreed to act as the official starter for the First Ever 19th Annual World’s Shortest St. Patrick’s Day Parade on March 17, 2022, Visit Hot Springs announced.
Trejo is perhaps best known as the character Machete, the star of a series of hit action-adventure movies of the same name.
“We are so fortunate that Danny
Trejo has agreed once again to come to Hot Springs on March 17, 2022, to entertain us as the official starter of our World’s Shortest St. Patrick’s Day Parade,” Steve Arrison, CEO of Visit Hot Springs, said in a news release.
“After two attempts to get Machete in town, we are really happy that he was able to arrange his schedule to join us for this fun-filled celebration,” Arrison said.
Los Angeles native Trejo told The Sentinel-record in February 2020 that he has never been to Arkansas before, let alone Hot Springs, but “I can’t wait to go. I’m very honored for the opportunity. I will have a lot of fun while I’m there.”
Trejo will be joined in his parade duties by his frequent co-star and close friend, actor Richard “Cheech” Marin, of “Cheech and Chong” fame, who will be the celebrity grand marshal.
Visit Hot Springs announced last month that Marin had also again agreed to serve as the parade’s grand marshal.
Like Trejo, Marin had been scheduled to participate in the 2020 parade, but the coronavirus pandemic disrupted the event for two years, resulting in greatly scaled-down versions in 2020 and 2021.
“I love him,” Trejo said in last year’s interview, referring to Marin. “I’ve known him for years. Hollywood can be a hard place, but he and I have stayed friends for years. He’s a wonderful man.”
Trejo and Marin have both appeared in a number of movies directed by Robert Rodriquez, beginning with “Desperado” in 1996, and its sequel, “Once Upon a Time in Mexico,” both starring Antonio Banderas, the horror film “From Dusk Till Dawn,” which also starred George Clooney, and the “Spy Kids” franchise which yielded four movies.
It was his role as Isador “Machete” Cortez, a federal agent, in the “Spy Kids” movies and in a “fake trailer” for a “Machete” movie that appeared in the “Grindhouse” double feature directed by Rodriquez and Quentin Tarantino that led to his starring in a real “Machete” movie and a sequel, “Machete Kills.”
“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,” according to a biography provided by Visit Hot Springs.
“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. On arrival at the set, Trejo was immediately offered a role as a convict,” it said.
Trejo went on to star in dozens of films, including “Desperado,” “Heat” (Robert De Niro, Al Pacino), the “From Dusk to Dawn” film series, “Con Air” (Nicolas Cage), “Once Upon a Time in Mexico” (Johnny Depp), and the “Spy Kids” movies, the bio said.
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 Ninenine” and “Kidding.”
Trejo 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 Farmers Market, Visit Hot Springs said.