Wenceslao Moreno (Señor Wences)

Early life Wenceslao Moreno was born in Peñaranda de Bracamonte, Salamanca, Spain. His father was Antonio Moreno Ros, and his mother was Josefa Centeno Lavera. Both parents were born in the province of Salamanca, his father in Peñaranda de Bracamonte and his mother in Cordovilla. Señor Wences's family on both sides were Roman Catholic. Señor Wences was one of the benefactors of the Convent of Saint Teresa of Avila (1515-1582) in Alba de Tormes, Salamanca, where he had a house. He attended Mass there every Sunday when vacationing during the summer. The street that leads to the convent received the name of Señor Wences while he was alive. Several other places in Salamanca and in Castille have streets named for him. At age 15, Moreno became a bullfighter, but he had to give up the sport after a serious injury. Doctors advised him to exercise his injured arm, so he learned to juggle and joined a circus act of some friends. Career Performing under the stage name "Señor Wences", Moreno was known for his speed, skill, and grace as a ventriloquist. His stable of characters included Johnny, a childlike face drawn on his hand, placed atop an otherwise headless doll, with whom the ventriloquist conversed while switching voices between Johnny's falsetto and his own voice with great speed. He opened his act by drawing Johnny's face on his hand, on stage. He would first place his thumb next to, and in front of, his bent first finger; the first finger would be the upper lip, and the thumb the lower lip. He used lipstick to draw the lips onto the respective fingers and then drew eyes onto the upper part of the first finger, finishing the effect with a tiny long-haired wig on top of his hand. Flexing the thumb would move the "lips." The inspiration for Johnny came from his school days when the teacher punished him for imitating classmates and answering "present" when they were absent. His punishment was to clean the inkwells and he smeared some of the ink on his hand, then clenched his fist to create the face. Another popular Señor Wences character was the gruff-voiced Pedro, a disembodied head in a box. Wences was forced to suddenly invent the character when his regular, full-sized dummy was destroyed during a 1936 train accident en route to Chicago. Pedro would either "speak" from within the closed box, or speak with moving lips – simply growling, "s'awright" ("it's all right") – when the performer opened the box's front panel with his free hand. A large part of the entertainer's comedy lay in the well-timed, high-speed exchange of words between himself and his creations, and in the difference in their voice pitches. Part of his act involved throwing his voice while his mouth was otherwise engaged (i.e. smoking or drinking.) Another favorite prop was a telephone, with the ventriloquist playing both sides of a telephone conversation. For the "caller" he simulated a "filtered" voice, as it would sound over a telephone wire. This voice always began a conversation with a shouted "Moreno?" – using Señor Wences' true surname. He would respond "No, Moreno is not here." He usually built to a big finish that combined ventriloquism with juggling and plate-spinning. As he performed his routines, Pedro and Johnny heckled him.