The Genial Mexican

Unrehearsed as usual, M. C. Paco Malgesto sauntered into his Mexico City TV studio only 30 minutes before show time, glanced vaguely over the program and took to the air. Up wriggled his guest, an Uruguayan beauty queen named Eda Lorna. She was muffled in a red velvet robe from chin to trim ankle. "It says here," said Malgesto politely, "that you dance the mambo in ballet style." Eda impatiently corrected him: "I dance the mambo in sexy style," dramatically ripped off her robe and with only a G-string to protect her from studio drafts, did her routine. Frantically Paco gestured for his cameramen, but they stood transfixed, and Eda danced inexorably on before the eyes of thousands of Mexicans. When the phones stopped ringing and the censors stopped roaring, Malgesto paid a 5,000-peso fine to the government for purveying obscenity over the air, apologized sheepishly to the nation's mothers and children.

TV fans have come to expect dramatic accidents when they tune in on Paco Malgesto, the Arthur Godfrey of Mexico rolled into one. He appears on two of the country's three TV networks for a grand total of 8 1/2 hours a week, spieling and laughing through a mixture of variety shows, bullfight commentaries, interview and quiz programs, and assorted sports shows. Paco almost never rehearses, believes in doing or saying on-screen what comes naturally ("When I itch, I scratch"), somehow has parlayed a combination of glibness, amiability and sports knowledge into nationwide fame and fortune. (Paco reports his income as $60,000 a year, five times the salary of Mexico's President Adolfo Ruiz Cortines.)

You're Another. A bouncy man of 40, Paco was born Francisco Rubiales, got his start as a bullfight critic by taking the pseudonym Malgesto (meaning grimace) and unashamedly plagiarizing the work of Mexico's most popular critics. "So I be gan with 40 years' experience, though I was only 21 years old," says Paco. From newspapering he ad-glibbed his way into radio, mostly reporting sporting events to sports-happy Mexicans. When TV arrived in force seven years ago, Pace's genial personality went with the small screen the way a hot sauce goes with enchiladas.

Lapses that might have cut short the careers of some scarcely detract from Paco Malgesto's prestige. One day, as he walked through a bullfight crowd with a portable microphone, he held out the mike to a stranger, who said, "You are a stupid bastard." "No sir," replied Paco, "it is you who are the bastard," and handed the mike back to the stranger. The pair traded obscenities for five minutes. That one cost Paco a 1,000-peso fine.

Last week on his new show called The Album of Paco Malgesto, alert engineers cut off the sound just as Paco began to tell in detail why the police used to raid Mexico City burlesque shows, turned it back five minutes later after Paco had moved on to more discreet matters.

Good from Fun. Outside the studio Malgesto lives a quiet life with his attractive wife (Nightclub Singer Flor Silvestre), two small children and their pet parrots, baby lamb and two horses. He gets 1,000 fan letters a week, and is quick to put in a good--and powerful--word for good causes. When he introduced a priest who was struggling to raise a tiny church, the building fund was oversubscribed by the next day's mail. Once he put an agonized mother on his program to appeal for the return of her kidnaped child. When she got home from the television studio, the baby was on her doorstep, safe and sound. Mexicans thank Paco Malgesto for that.

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