Today we’d like to introduce you to Dan Guerrero.
Hi Dan, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
Let’s start at the very beginning. I was born in Tucson, Arizona at the Stork’s Nest. It sounds like a bar but it was a maternity hospital where several generations of Tucsonans were born. My mom Margaret and dad Lalo were born and raised in Tucson. Mom was Irish on her paternal side and Mexican on the maternal. Her father was a mining engineer born in San Antonio and he was working for mining companies in Mexico when he met his future wife. They wed in 1900. The Irish family was not happy that a Mexican branch was sprouting on the family tree. Charles Francis Marmion eventually brought Fermina Corral to Tucson where all eight of their children were born including mom, the baby of the family. Dad’s Mexican parents arrived in Tucson during the Mexican revolution at the invitation of the Southern Pacific Railroad that headed south of the border looking for skilled labor to help build our country. My grandfather was an expert boiler maker. Many years after all eight of their children were born in Tucson, they were not happy my future dad was marrying a woman only half-Mexican. Irony. I was still a toddler when mom and dad moved to Los Angeles where my fully bilingual dad intended to carve out a career in music as a singer and songwriter. But it was a time, as dad would put it, when “no band was going to hire a six-foot tall brown man as a vocalist.” So he turned to the Spanish language world and was recording in Spanish, in Los Angeles, by the late 1930s. Dad enjoyed an illustrious career of over seventy years eventually being dubbed The Father of Chicano Music. His honors were many including the National Medal of Arts presented by President Clinton at a White House dinner. He was the first Mexican-American to receive our nation’s highest arts award. No big surprise that I went into show business as did my brother Mark. I knew what I wanted by the time I was 8 or 9 years old. Show biz. And by the time I was 12 or 13, I also knew I was gay though uglier terms were used in the 1950s. Growing up was interminable. My best friend Carlos and I were counting the minutes until we could get out of East LA where we grew up. We were early dreamers and knew there was a big world out there and we wanted it all. And at age 84, I still do.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
No one’s life journey is smooth. I’ve had what many might call a spectacular life. It’s not been without its bumps and bruises. But you gotta keep going, always moving forward. That’s really the only choice. Growing up Mexican-American and gay in 1950s East LA was no walk in the park. And not only there. My BFF Carlos and I moved to New York City on Valentine’s Day 1962. He wanted to be an artist and I wanted to be in musicals. He stayed 4 months and I stayed 20 years. It was no easier being Mexican-American and gay in New York. But I believed, and still do, in following your dreams. It’s important to have dreams. Most won’t come true. But I believe you will travel much further in life reaching than not. But you must be flexible. Dreams change. Life changes. You gotta change with them. Sounds corny but go with the flow. See where life takes you. I’ve said ‘yes’ to nearly everything that popped up in my life. A new path. A new adventure. You never know where it leads. I’ve had a full and eclectic life and career. I’ve kept steady on my path, but it’s never a straight line. Life is not that easy. You have to climb over that rock, paddle that stream, crawl under that bridge. Always moving forward. I just kept going with the flow until my biggest life challenge caught me by off-guard. Aging. I never gave aging a thought. Moving from my 20s to my 30s or 50s into my 60s and 70s, nothing. But 80 was a shock. I found myself totally unprepared. It’s a rapidly changing world and how you work within it when you know you are in the last chapter is daunting. Especially if you’re a solo ager. I have no grown children or grandchildren. I lost my partner of 43 years just 3 years ago. It was a horrific exit for my Irishman Richard as I cared for him alone at home during the COVID lock down. The entire aging experience prompted me to write a solo piece, “Aging: It Does Not End Well.” I’ve done a handful of readings so it’s still in early development. My first solo show, “Gaytino!” opened up an entire new world as I performed it all over the country including at the Kennedy Center in DC. I’m grateful to be healthy and busy at this advanced age. True, I’m not crazy about the sags and bags, but the worst thing about the last act? The losses. Family, friends that become family and nearly always younger than me are gone. And with each loss, you lose a part of your life history. You make new friends and I’m blessed in that department, but how can they match friendships of 40 or 50 years?
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I fell in love with musical theatre while in junior high and after high school and two years at East LA College, off I went to New York with my best friend. I lived a musical theatre life for twenty years. The first decade was all singing and dancing off-Broadway, in regional theater, summer stock and in the New York cabaret scene where I performed at the fabled Bon Soir among other elegant clubs of the era. I even performed at the Nixon White House. I eventually became a successful Broadway theatrical agent representing future Tony Award winners and Hollywood stars including a pubescent Sarah Jessica Parker. I returned to LA in the early eighties and started casting for Broadway musicals tapping the Hollywood talent pool. I did casting for everyone from Stephen Sondheim to Harvey Fierstein and Arthur Laurents among many other musical giants. One day a new door opened and I began producing for television. Mostly music and award shows for network and pre-streaming cable TV including co-producing the Concert of the Americas with Quincy Jones for the Clinton White House. That eventually led to directing and staging live large-scale musical events at prestigious venues including the Cite de la Musique in Paris, the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion for the LA Opera, the Apollo Theatre in NYC and multi-productions at the Kennedy Center. At age 65, I returned to my performing roots at no one’s request. I wrote and performed a solo autobiographical play with music titled Gaytino!. It opened a whole new world adding my LGBTQ community to my Chicano activism. I also added educator to my resume after accepting an invitation to teach a course at UCLA based on my solo show. And that led to my appointment as a UC Regents Lecturer. My life also includes volunteering on the boards of the Vincent Price Art Museum on the campus of my alma mater East LA College and the Neighborhood Music School in Boyle Heights that provides low and no-cost music education for children. I will be 85 this fall of 2025 and I continue my creative journey developing product for TV and film and mentoring the next generation of artists. Aging should never stop the creative process. And I’m still dreaming. It’s more challenging to do at this age with a clock ticking loudly. But I keep dreaming and moving forward. There is no other choice.
What does success mean to you?
Being a good person.
Contact Info:
- Website: danguerrero.com. gaytino.com
- Instagram: @gaytinoshow
- Facebook: https://Facebook.com/GaytinoShow
- Twitter: Twitter.com/GaytinoShow @GaytinoShow
