John Leguizamo
Birth Name: John Alberto Leguizamo Peláez
Place of Birth: Bogotá, Cundinamarca, Colombia
Date of Birth: July 22, 1960
Ethnicity: Colombian [Spanish, Indigenous, Basque, distant African and Jewish]
John Leguizamo is a Colombian-born American actor, stand-up comedian, film producer, playwright, and screenwriter. His many roles include the films Super Mario Bros., To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar, Executive Decision, William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet, Spawn, Summer of Sam, Moulin Rouge!, Collateral Damage, Ice Age, Land of the Dead, John Wick, The Menu, and Violent Night, television’s The Kill Point, Bloodline, and When They See Us, and one-man shows on stage.
John was born in Bogotá, Colombia, the son of Luz Marina Peláez and Alberto Rudolfo Leguizamo. John’s family moved to New York City in the 1960s, living in Queens. He is married to costumer Justine Maurer, with whom he has two children.
Over the years, John had stated that he has Puerto Rican, Italian, Lebanese, and/or other ancestry. These statements are not accurate. John at least has no significant ancestry from these communities.
A DNA test whose results were displayed on the show Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (2022) stated that John’s genetic ancestry is:
*59.4% European-Majority Spanish
*24.5% Indigenous
*3.1% Middle Eastern/North African
*2.9% Sub-Saharan African
*10.1% Unmatched
His mtDNA is of the Indigenous Americas.
Genetically, he was found to have a common ancestor with actor David Duchovny, through shared Jewish ancestry; John’s mother has a small amount of Jewish heritage.
John’s paternal grandfather Martín Vargas Cualla (the son of Nicolas Vargas Villegas and Elisa Cualla Ricaurte). Martín was born in Bogota, Cundinamarca, Colombia. He was a wealthy landowner. Elisa was the daughter of Higinio Cualla, who was Mayor of Bogotá, from 1884 to 1900, and helped modernize the city.
John’s paternal grandmother was named María Emilia Leguizamo. María Emilia was born in Orocué, Casanare, Colombia.
John’s maternal grandfather was named Alfonso Espitia Flerro.
John’s maternal grandmother was María Waldina Peláez Pérez (the daughter of Juan Crisóstomo Peláez Chica and Leonilde Pérez Quesada). Juan was the son of Juan Crisóstomo Peláez Gallego and María Waldina/Ubaldina Londoño/Chica Idárraga. Through this line, John’s seventh great-grandfather was Corregidor Sancho Londoño Zapata, a local administrator for the Spanish crown, who was the richest person in the province of Rio Negro at the time of his death.
Sources: http://www.cnn.com
http://www.nytimes.com
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Guys come on he was being sarcastic and funny when he said years ago to Opera I’m a light skin black man lmao. Ya retarded lol.
Hey, his complexion is the worst thing to look at because that’s how this stupid mess got started in the first place. People watch a lot of movies and tv and what did yo see. Cowboys and Indians. The cowboys were played by Anglo Whites and the Indians were played by Italians or Polish people and why might you ask? It was because they didn’t want real Natives on tv and you could slap on some fake hair and heavy makeup over some high-cheekbones and vola you have an Indian. Only problem with that is that real Indian (Native Americans) have many looks just like Africans and Europeans. They can look Asian African (to some degree) slightly European but mostly they tend to favor Mexicans in physical characteristics and skin color and Polynesians in hair and love for the land.
WTAF did you just type?!
He said on oprah years ago that he was a light skin black men
this is wierd,i saw your post on dean martin,and you made no mention of his obvious black blood.yet you try to say he’s black.he was probably catering to oprahs audience.he also lied about being puerto rican
Dean Martin is part black???
look at his complexion,if he was hispanic ,everyone and their mother would be making up black ancestry.it has to go both ways one is not black just for having a hispanic name.just as one is not automatically white .being from a european counrty,there are blacks in europe.
K mr.iknow everything and I got my balls chopt yeah that’s to rafael
K mr.iknow everything and I got my balls chopt yeah that’s to rafael!
Hey, he was probably just trying to get her number lol.
Haha u funny
he’s not puerto rican, he lied he’s colombian
http://www.latina.com/entertainment/buzz/poll-do-you-care-john-leguizamo-isnt-puerto-rican
how do you know he has lebanese and italian ancestry?
i think he might have native in him also
Alright read again! and then realize that Colombian or even Puerto Rican is possibly a native mixture, not always that case. Latin America is multiple races and multiple ethnicities: White, Arab, Asian, Native American, Mestizo, and Black. People need to stop thinking there is only the one ethnicity, Native American. Besides, there are many Labanese and Italians in Colombia also!