MUCHO MUCHO AMOR: THE LEGEND OF WALTER MERCADO (L to R) Walter Mercado, Lin-Manuel Miranda and Luis Miranda in MUCHO MUCHO AMOR: THE LEGEND OF WALTER MERCADO. Cr. NETFLIX © 202
LOS ANGELES, CA (LA ELEMENTS) 7/24/2020 – The unpredictable new Netflix documentary, Mucho Mucho Amor: The Legend of Walter Mercado, is a totally captivating look at the man whose astrological predictions and flamboyant style entranced the Latino community for nearly 40 years across the Americas – and beyond.
By creating a mystery tucked inside a biopic, directors Cristina Costantini (Science Fair) and Kareem Tabsch (The Last Resort) grab us from the very first frames, with the help of Walter’s superfans, who range from Lin-Manuel Miranda to Eugenio Derbez and Raul De Molina, along with his family and friends. They help those of us who didn’t grow up watching Mercado’s daily horoscope offerings on various Spanish-language TV stations, to understand just what a superstar Walter was.
As we see in the film, from the late 1960s to the early 2000s, the Puerto Rican native used his flamboyant persona to spread love and positivity via his television appearances, horoscope newspaper columns, books and public appearances. He loved his community and Latinos loved him right back despite his purposefully androgynous sexual blending. Although his flowing blond locks, outlandish costumes, signature capes and dazzling jewelry, may have clashed with the machismo code among Latin men during the era that saw Mercado rise to worldwide fame, everyone watched him. From grandmothers (and grandfathers, too) right down to the children in the family, Walter somehow appealed to everyone.
At the height of his popularity, Mercado’s acclaim had expanded far beyond his core Latino audience. One surprising revelation in the documentary is the fact that he counted everyone from Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton to Howard Stern and Anderson Cooper as fans and friends. But Walter never divulged the names of the famous (or not-so-famous) people he did astrological readings and one-on-one consultations with. He protected their confidentiality above all.
Then, after decades of being adored by millions, consulted by celebrities and personally loving being constantly in the public eye, he disappeared. Why – and where he went – is at the heart of this year’s Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury Prize nominee, a documentary, a mystery that unravels in a poignant and compelling way.
Greed, betrayal and other dastardly deeds are all a part of that mystery and of Mucho Mucho Amor: The Legend of Walter Mercado; but as the filmmakers discover and reveal, nothing ever caused the glided-cape-loving astrologer to become either bitter or filled with hate. Instead, we see Mercado’s lifelong spirituality remain steadfast and his belief in love above all else continue to shine. And in the end, the 87-year-old star is honored and remembered in a very special way.
“Mucho Mucho Amor” was Walter’s signature sign-off every day, and by the time the credits roll on this fascinating documentary, it’s easy to feel the love.
Walter Mercado
LA Elements spoke to director Cristina Costantini in an exclusive interview about the three-year journey she took to make Mucho Mucho Amor: The Legend of Walter Mercado, along with her co-director Kareem Tabsch and producer Alex Fumero. Here are the highlights of our conversation. [Warning: there are some spoilers revealed here.]
How did Mucho Mucho Amor: The Legend of Walter Mercado come about?
I grew up with Walter and my grandmother. When she would babysit me, Walter was always on. She loved Walter. I loved Walter, too – I think maybe for different reasons. I was just enthralled with this person who dressed so magically and who looked like they could tell the future. So I had always loved him and into adulthood, I started thinking about just how radical it was to do what he was doing back then, looking like he looked on television every day. At the time, it was just so amazing. So I started thinking, ‘How can a figure like that just disappear?’ And I couldn’t find anything about him having passed away. So I started calling around my friends at Univision, I thought they might know, and one of them said, “Have you tried calling Alex? He loves Walter, too.”
Did you know Alex before you started the film? Or Kareem?
I kind of knew Alex, and so I called him one day. And he said, ‘This is the weirdest thing in the world. I’m talking to another director in just a few minutes about doing a movie about Walter Mercado. Would you be interested in joining that call?’ And I said, ‘Absolutely. I would love that. I’m down to co-direct.’ And that same day – it was really kind of cosmic – we got all got on a phone call and had about an hour-long conversation, and decided that we were all going to do together. That was in August 2017.
Where did you find Walter Mercado?
In Puerto Rico. Which was a problem, since we had, basically, for the first year we had $10,000. We were having a lot of trouble raising money. And we found that maybe our biggest barrier was that there were not any Latino executives in any of these boardrooms. To understand the importance of a figure like Walter, who hasn’t been in the limelight for a while, you really just need a Latino person in the room. So it was it was a very hard task. And then ultimately, the people who ended up coming through with the real money – we had two offers – and both of them were companies that had a Latino executive, a young Latino executive in charge who could basically advocate for us and say, ‘Yes, Walter is huge and this movie is gonna be big.’ We ended up going with Netflix and they have been wonderful and we’re just so grateful that they have Latino people there, helping to create programming that reflects the actual community that you’re trying to reach, rather than who a bunch of white people.
Once you found him, how willing was he to participate in the documentary?
Walter was super excited by the idea of doing a film and being back in the limelight again. At the very beginning of filming I don’t think he understood what documentary was when he agreed to do the film. At the beginning of filming, he would ask for his script every morning. ‘Really. Walter, that’s not what this is like, we’re just going to film what you would be doing if we weren’t here,’ we’d say. He understood, and he loved the cameras and the lights. It all gave him energy and light. There was an immediate transformation, which was pretty remarkable to watch. I think you see that reflected in the film.
You also found Bill Bakula, the man who managed Walter and helped make him a huge international star, but who was also the person that ruined Walter’s career by enforcing a contract that took all of Walter’s rights out of his hands.
We worked hard to get Bill on camera. As filmmakers, our responsibility was to present his side as well. In his view, Bill believed that Walter had entered into a contract that he had signed and that he had understood. I think the debatable part is whether if Walter really understood it and had carefully considered it, or if he had trusted Bill too much. Walter had a lot of sadness about those times, but he still considered Bill as family.
Walter died shortly after you finished the film. Was that an unexpected ending to your story?
When we were filming, we thought this was like the beginning of a comeback for Walter. He always had like, 100 plans; when we started filming three years ago, he was so healthy. He always said, ‘Age, it’s just a number.’ And he felt like an ageless personality to us. We didn’t realize just how quickly he would pass away; we had dreamed that he would be at Sundance with us. That didn’t happen, but I hope his message is living on in a different form, with our film.
This report has been updated to include the official trailer of Mucho Mucho Amor: The Legend of Walter Mercado.
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All photography courtesy of Netflix.
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