Alejandro Dolina

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Alejandro Dolina (born May 20, 1945) is an Argentine broadcaster, who also achieved renown as a musician and a writer.

Dolina was born in Baigorrita, Buenos Aires Province, and spent his childhood years in Caseros, a middle-class suburb of Buenos Aires city, with Yugoslav (in his own words -he never referred to a particular ethnic group in the defunct country) and Italian ancestry (he has also reminded his audiences that Dolina is a word preserved in many Slavic languages, meaning valley). He pursued music and writing since childhood. Although he steadfastly refuses to discuss his private life, he often recalls anecdotes about time spent in his youth in the company of musicians and professional gamblers (he confesses of having worked for a while as a dice man at an illegal casino, until his acquaintance Manuel Evequoz "rescued" him, preventing his going further astray and offering him the first jobs in the advertising business).

In the early 1970s, Dolina made inroads into advertising copywriting and started publishing articles in Satiricón magazine, which was read for laughs but often provided deeper reflections on politics, society, and life in general. His main partner in this adventure was Carlos Trillo, who was also an advertising man and would later become a successful comics writer.

In 1978, with Satiricón closed by the military dictatorship, Dolina started writing in Humor magazine, which treaded much more carefully to avoid closure or an even worse fate. During these years, Dolina (himself a moderate Peronist) wrote essays about honor, love, friendship, and invented a mythology centered on the Gray Angel of Flores neighborhood, fictitious writer Manuel Mandeb (according to himself, inspired by Manuel Evequoz, the man who had helped him in his early youth), using them as a pretext to deal with universal themes. These stories have since been published in the book "Crónicas del Ángel Gris" ("Chronicles of the Gray Angel") in 1987, and later morphed into a musical.

With the return of democracy in 1983, Dolina started hosting a successful late radio show: originally named Demasiado tarde para lágrimas ("Too late for tears"). For several years he enjoyed a growing success; in 1987 he was voted the best humourist in a poll conducted by a primetime TV show, leaving behind some legendary comic actors such as Alberto Olmedo and Jorge Porcel, still active back then. In 1988 he started his own TV show La Barra de Dolina ("Dolina's Gang"); the show was daring enough to include soccer matches featuring some retired stars, and even St. Peter's & St. Paul's bonfires, an old more (safety matters aside, it's held as a bad omen to have real fire in a TV studio). As in his radio show, he'd greet members of the audience in person. In 1990 and 1991 Dolina kept his TV show once a week, while his daily radio show went on a hiatus. Its name was later changed for contractual reasons, in 1992 to El Ombligo del Mundo (a name shared by his resumed radio show and by a Saturday night TV-show); in 1993 he drops the TV show while the radio show gets its current name: La venganza será terrible ("Revenge will be terrible"). In 1991 he was nominated for the "TV or Radio Host" Konex Award for his work in the show.

In spite of changes in the radio or TV station the show format suffered only minor changes since its inception in the mid '80s. To accommodate live audiences (free admittance until the place is full) many live studios were used: the Radio El Mundo (radio) and Canal 11 [1988] and ATC[1990, 1991] (TV) auditoriums; those at the House of Buenos Aires province [1989], House of Entre Ríos province [1989]; the Insurance Workers' Union [1992]. Then, the two-hour show was broadcast live Monday to Friday at midnight originally from the basement of the famous Café Tortoni. Due to security reasons, after República Cromagnon nightclub fire, it was transferred in 2005 to the Hotel Bauen, a recuperated business. Since January 15th, 2007, the show is broadcasted from the Picasso auditorium, in the Paseo La Plaza, in Buenos Aires.

Dolina currently has two co-hosts: Gabriel Rolón and Guillermo Stronati (until 2006, then Daniel Mactas, except on Tuesdays and Fridays, when he is replaced by Marcelo "Gillespie" Rodríguez). The show has four parts. In the first part he discusses historic or mythical events (Greek mythology is a favorite, with European history a close second). They then read messages from the audience in the room and radio listeners at large. Then, humor kicks in full-tilt as he reads magazine articles and improvises stories that stray quite far from the article's intent (often including real-life celebrities). The show is closed by playing popular songs on request, accompanying himself on the electric piano. In this segment he created a fictional character: Arnaldo the Deaf Gancé, the purported pianist. His deafness is more than a mere nickname: according to Dolina this is because of the low-key performances, which give absolute priority to melody and almost none to harmony.

His more recent TV shows (e.g. Bar del Infierno), met much less success.

Dolina has always been known for his vast knowledge of old-school tango, and is an accomplished pianist and singer himself. He has been a key figure in the tango revival not only through his speeches but also by linking well-known melodies to their titles and authors in the Deaf's segment. He also rescued from oblivion some artists (such as female tango singer Nelly Omar, whom he invited into his 1988 TV shows).

Still, he has refused to record as a solo artist, as he sees himself as not passing muster in this area. He did produce and sing in his opereta criolla "Lo que me costó el amor de Laura" ("What I paid for Laura's love").

An avid reader (a major influence is philosopher Miguel de Unamuno) and a very articulate speaker, Dolina has always been an enthusiastic popularizer of Jorge Luis Borges's poetic work (opposing the widespread view of this author as an ivory-tower elitist and the underrating of his poetry in favour of his narrative works). He has also proven a honest thinker: although his romantic sentiment led him to chastise skeptics in his Gray Angel mythos (as the fictional Society of Legends' Debunkers) he often expressed sympathy to the efforts of real life skeptics against pseudoscience and quackery. He never hesitated to speak his mind in political matters, even when this meant the risk of alienating followers, and bypassed opportunities to achieve success in the advertisement milieu and in politics. His Peronist leanings and his embrace of the heroic ethic (as opposed to bourgeois morality) contrasts with the mainly left-wing liberal leanings of the audience, providing for an underlying tension that shows even in his funniest moments.