Television host and producer Gerardo Sofovich died yesterday from internal bleeding, after a few months of health complications which saw him put on the ventilator late last year for a pulmonary infection and chronic obstructive lung disease. He was 77. Sofovich kept working until a few days ago for Channel 13’s Los 8 escalones quiz show.
Sofovich was no stranger to serious ailments. After losing his left leg in a tram accident in his youth, he was plagued with heart and lung conditions later in life. In March 1992 he had a heart attack, followed by a pre-heart attack in 1996 which led doctors to ask him to cut back on his work schedule. In May, 2004, he underwent angioplasty and in 2006 he was hospitalized with cardiovascular complications. However, after each episode, Sofovich decided to return to work almost immediately.
The producer was a key figure of Argentina’s entertainment scene. He was both loved and hated with a passion and his name became intrinsically linked to Argentina’s humour industry for more than five decades. A playwright, director, producer, businessman and TV host, Sofovich certainly knew how to make himself into one of the nation’s key mass entertainers.
Although he had been very frail for months, the news of his death hit the entertainment industry hard, with celebs and common people taking to the social media to voice their shock. Sofovich had been for decades in a love/hate relationship with his audience, some of which railed against his highhandedness and manifest use of power and influence.
On the other hand, he is credited with discovering and helping launch the career of scores of television and media stars, from Moria Casán and Susana Giménez to Florencia de la V, Nazarena Vélez, Mariano Iúdica, Iliana Calabró, and Jésica Cirio, among others.
“Dear Gerardo, you deserve to rest in peace after a lifetime of great successes and greater grief. RIP,” Susana Giménez tweeted yesterday, while Moria Casán told reporters that “although many of Sofovich’s works were labelled as vulgar, gaudy and even tawdry, they have entertained and keep entertaining national audiences.”
Television host Marcelo Tinelli also took to Twitter as the news of Sofovich’s passing was spreading like fire: “They say there’s no such thing as death and that people die only when they’re forgotten. We will never forget you. You have all my love, Gerardo,” Tinelli tweeted.
Former model and TV host Teté Coustarot told news channel C5N: “He was a great professional. He was a fighter. He lived part of his life at television studios which were like a second home to him. We will see now a great appraisal of his work, of what he invented, of the many people he promoted.”
Among the public figures who rushed to speak about Sofovich yesterday was one of his most controversial friends: former Argentine president Carlos Menem.
Their close relationship fuelled corruption accusations after Menem appointed Sofovich as a trustee of the State-run ATC Channel 7, and other times led to political rumours, as happened before the 2003 mayoral elections in BA, when Sofovich’s name was circulated as a very likely candidate of Menem’s party, although he later withdrew from the race.
“Menem was the most important stateman this country ever had,” Sofovich used to say. In an interview with Jorge Lafauci on Radio 10 yesterday, Menem returned the favour by extolling Sofovich: “My sorrow knows no bounds for this friend who passed away. He was a good man. Everything he did, he did it in the best interest of Argentina, of our people.”
The ex-president said he was surprised by the news of Sofovich’s death and that he wouldn’t attend the wake held last night at the City Legislature: “I won’t go because seeing him lying in a coffin will only worsen my grief, there’s no point in going. Everyone knows how much I cared about him.”
Sofovich married twice. He had a son, Gustavo, from his 30-year marriage to actress Carmen Morales, whom he divorced in 1995. In 2009, he married Sofía Oleksak, almost 30 years his junior, but their marriage was short-lived.
Source: Buenos Aires Herald