Emilio Delgado, beloved as Luis on ‘Sesame Street,’ dead at 81

nypost.com:

told TMZ that her husband had been battling blood cancer for the past few years and died surrounded by his family in NYC. The Post has reached out to his rep for confirmation.Delgado — also a stage actor who appeared in several productions of “Sesame Street” — was reportedly working up until his death in a theater run of “Quixote Nuevo.” The Mexican American actor first became a household name playing Luis — the singing owner of the neighborhood “Fix-It Shop” — on the long-running children’s television show in 1971.He remained on the series until 2016 but continued making appearances at conventions for the show.

Over the years he also appeared in numerous other television shows, including “Quincy M.E.,” “Falcon Crest,” “Lou Grant,” “Law & Order,” “Person of Interest” and “House of Cards.”Delgado was born on the California side of the US-Mexico border and was raised in Mexico by his grandparents, he told the Houston Chronicle in 2020.

He worked in a real-life fix-it-type shop, repairing bicycles. When his family moved to Los Angeles, he picked up the trombone and drums and later pursued singing and acting, landing his first major gig on the Mexican American soap opera “Cancion de la Raza,” all while pursuing voiceover work.

When he was hired to play Luis, he embraced the opportunity as a way to improve the representation of Latinos on TV.“I’d been trying all my professional life to be somewhere I can change that, whether I was talking about it or trying to get into a project that showed Latinos in a good light,” he told the Chronicle. “That’s why ‘Sesame Street’ was such a good thing.