Rick Moranis, the successful comedian who turned his back on Hollywood

BarcelonaIn 1989, Rick Moranis was Hollywood's most profitable actor. That same year he released three comedies that grossed over $100 million at the North American box office: Dear, I have found the children, Ghostbusters 2 and Parenthood (premiered in our home as Sweet home... sometimes!). Forged in the anarchic humor of late 70s Canadian radio and television, Moranis jumped to Hollywood in the early 80s and paraded his nerd overwhelmed and overcome by circumstances by titles such as Ghostbusters (1984) and The horror store (1987), among others.

But in 1991, his wife, Ann Belsky, died of breast cancer. With two young children to care for, Moranis tried to balance fatherhood and his career. He starred in the sequel Dear, I have enlarged the child (1992) and played one of the main characters in The Flintstones (1994), that of Barney Terregam –Pablo Marmol in the Spanish version–, but cinema forced him to spend too much time away from his children and in 1997 he starred in his last film: "Dear, we have shrunk ourselves. From one day to the next, Moranis traded the sets for family life and turned his back on Hollywood to watch his children grow, limiting his film work to voicing animated characters.

However, Moranis's retirement is about to end: the actor will reprise the character of Dark Helmet in the sequel to The colourful history of galaxies (Space balls), the delirious parody of Star wars that Mel Brooks made in 1987. A few days ago, Moranis made a special appearance at San Diego Comic-Con to present the project of Space balls: the new one, which will reunite the original cast with a new director and Brooks as producer. At Comic-Con, cheered by the audience, Moranis joked about his absence from cinema: “I wasn’t actually retired, I was just negotiating”.