Fortino Mario Alfonso Moreno Reyes

He earned wide popularity with his stage and film persona Cantinflas, usually portrayed as an impoverished campesino slumdweller of pelado origin. The character came to be associated with the national identity of Mexico, and allowed Moreno to establish a long, successful film career that included a foray into Hollywood. Charlie Chaplin once called him "the greatest comedian in the world", and Moreno is often referred to as the "Charlie Chaplin of Mexico"

Among the things that endeared him to his public was his comic use of language in his films; his characters (all of which were really variations of the main "Cantinflas" persona but cast in different social roles and circumstances) would strike up a normal conversation and then complicate it to the point where no one understood what they were talking about. The Cantinflas character was particularly adept at obfuscating the conversation when he owed somebody money, was courting an attractive young woman, or was trying to talk his way out of trouble with authorities, whom he managed to humiliate without their even being able to tell. This manner of talking became known as Cantinfleada, and it became common parlance for Spanish speakers to say "¡estas cantinfleando!" (loosely translated as you're pulling a "Cantinflas!" or you're "Cantinflassing!") whenever someone became hard to understand in conversation. The Real Academia Española officially included the verb cantinflear, cantinflas, and cantinflada[19] in its dictionary in 1992.

As a young man, Cantinflas performed a variety of acts in travelling tents. It was also in the tents that he earned the nickname "Cantinflas"; however, the origin of the name is obscured by legend. According to one obituary, "Cantinflas" is a meaningless name invented to prevent his parents from knowing he was in the entertainment business, which they considered a shameful occupation. In another version, the Mexican media critic and theorist Carlos Monsivais cites a legendary account of the origin of Cantinflas' characteristic speech:

According to a legend that he agrees with, a young Mario Moreno, overwhelmed by stage fright, once, in the Ofelia carpa, forgets his original monologue. He begins to say what comes to mind in a complete emancipation of phrases and words, and what comes to mind is an incoherent brilliance. His assistants recite his attack on syntax, and Mario becomes aware of it: destiny has placed in his hands the distinctive characteristic, the style that is manipulation of chaos. Weeks later, the name that will mark the invention is invented. Someone, taken in by the nonsense, screams: "Cuanto inflas!" [C' ntinflas] (You're annoying!) or "En la cantina inflas!" (You like to drink a lot at the cantina (inflar means to drink)). The contraction catches on and becomes proof of the baptism that the character needs.