Emilio Delgado, the actor who played handyman Luis on the beloved children’s television show Sesame Street for over four decades, died Thursday at his New York City home. He was 81 years old.
The cause was multiple myeloma, a blood cancer that Mr. Delgado had been battling since December 2020, according to his agent René Glicker.
For 44 years on Sesame Street, Mr. Delgado’s character owned the Repair Shop, where he repaired any item in need of repair, like picture frames or giant toasters. At the store, Luis is joined by Maria, played by Sonia Manzano. After an on-screen courtship, the characters married in a widely viewed episode of the program in 1988.
The marriage of Maria and Louis was cause for celebration among the children, who learned about numbers and letters, as well as mundane concepts such as death and diversity from Sesame Street. Parents dressed up their children in trendy outfits for watching parties. Mothers wept during the ceremony.
The union that followed five months of hugging, serenading and sharing pizza was also a way to teach young children about love. The two characters have been friends and shop partners for 10 years, but their feelings begin to change when they take care of a sick kitten.
“Because kids see love in terms of physical things like kissing, hugging, giving flowers, we showed Maria and Luis do a lot of that,” Ms. Manzano, who also wrote for the show, told The New York Times. in 1988.
“We wanted to show a couple who are good to each other and have fun together,” she said.
A full obituary is being prepared.