Cheech Marin

Booking Fee: Contact us below  Artist Location: United States  IMDb   Twitter   Wikipedia

Cheech Marin's Bio: Best known as one half of the hilariously irreverent, satirical, counter-culture, no-holds-barred duo Cheech and Chong, Cheech Marin is a paradox in the world of entertainment. Cheech is an actor, director, writer, musician, art collector and humanitarian, a man who has enough talent, humor and intelligence to do just about anything. He is truly a multi-generational star-or as Cheech jests, "People know me from the womb to the tomb." To this day, Cheech and Chong films remain the number one weekend video rentals, and Cheech is widely acknowledged as a cultural icon.

Cheech (real name Richard) Marin was born July 13, 1946 in South Central Los Angeles and raised in Granada Hills, a suburb in the San Fernando Valley. He has always loved music. "As a little kid, I was a singer and made records. I was always in bands-you name it, I sang it-R&B, jazz, funk, I did it all," he says. After attending California State University, Northridge to study English, he left-eight credits short of a degree-to "pursue pottery and avoid the draft." However, in 2004, he received a Distinguished Alumni Award from the university.

Moving to Vancouver, British Columbia as a political refugee, Cheech soon met Tommy Chong who owned a topless club. He worked there for nine months, combining music and improvisational comedy in a troupe called City Works. "It was great-you could call it a hippie burlesque," he quips. Eventually, Cheech and Chong teamed up and moved back to Los Angeles. They performed their stand-up/music act at clubs all over Los Angeles until they were discovered at the Troubadour by music industry magnate Lou Adler. "The rest," Cheech says, "is history." Between 1972 and 1985, they released nine albums: Cheech and Chong (1972), Big Bambú (1972), Los Cochinos (1973), Cheech and Chong Wedding Album (1974), Sleeping Beauty (1976), Up In Smoke (soundtrack, 1979), Let's Make a New Dope Deal (1980), Cheech and Chong's Greatest Hits (1981), Get Out of My Room (1985). Big Bambú became the largest-selling comedy recording of all time, retaining that distinction for many years. Six of the albums went gold, four were nominated for Grammys, and Los Cochinos won the 1973 Grammy for Best Comedy Recording.

A third-generation Mexican American, Cheech has been recognized for his work on behalf of Latinos by the Imagen Foundation with its 2000 Creative Achievement Award and by the National Council of La Raza and Kraft Foods with the 1999 ALMA Community Service Award. In 2007, he received an honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts for his contributions to the creative arts from Otis College of Art and Design, and received the inaugural Legacy Award for Arts Advocacy from the Smithsonian Latino Center. He currently serves on the boards of the Smithsonian Latino Center and the Hispanic Scholarship Fund.

Cheech Marin contributes a lot of time and energy to promoting Chicano art. Since the mid-1980s, he has amassed a renowned private collection of Chicano art. Much of it formed the core of his national exhibition Chicano Visions: American Painters on the Verge, which broke attendance records during its groundbreaking 12-city tour during 2001-2007 to major U.S. art museums. The exhibition, The Chicano Collection/La Colección Chicana: Fine Art Prints by Modern Multiples, consists of 26 archival-quality digital prints (gicleés), primarily of paintings from his collection, and 26 linocut artist portraits by Artemio Rodriguez. His exhibition, Papel Chicano: Works on Paper from the Collection of Cheech Marin, includes an awardwinning artbook and is now touring to mid-sized museums. Selections from his collection can also be seen in his Los Angelenos/Chicano Painters of L.A., an exhibition that was on view at LACMA in Los Angeles, June 15 through November 2, 2008. In 2008, he celebrated his 20th year of collecting by launching plans for a new commemorative series of exhibitions and art books.

Cheech is a nationally ranked golfer active in the charity golf circuit. His line of gourmet hot sauces is sold nationwide. Cheech is married to Russian-born classical pianist Natasha Marin (formerly Natasha Rubin). They reside in Malibu, CA. Proving that he's more than just a funnyman, Cheech defeated journalist Anderson Cooper and actress Aisha Tyler on Celebrity Jeopardy! on March 18, 2010. … Read more