Page 15 - ARUBA TODAY

A15
LOCAL Tuesday 6 February 2018

Ray Ellin, Comedian, Host and Producer: ‘It Feels Good’

Continued from Page 14

Ray studied Film at College and after that produced a series of
shows with Latin comics throughout the States. “That gave me
the idea of making a movie. 11 years ago, in 2006, I produced
‘The Latin Legends of Comedy’ which I financed with 6 credit
cards. Someone told me that only 2 or 3 percent of all movies
made are being sold. But I sold mine to 20th Century Fox. Its
opening weekend, the film finished third in per-screen average
behind Oscar winners The Last King of Scotland and The Queen.”
That movie could have been bigger, Ray says, but he did it all
by himself and was kind of burnt out. “I was at this film festival
and the film makers all brought their own staff. I was there alone
cutting my movie flyers by hand, just terrible. All had beautiful
posters and so on. A week later a guy called: ‘can you send me
a copy of the movie. I picked up the flyer and I thought it looked
interesting’. I think they valued it like cool retro “, Ray laughs out
loud. He also hosted different TV shows in New York and did lots
of TV commercials. But before that he had day jobs too like bar-
tender, he even sold uniforms to mailmen, all kinds of jobs and in
the evenings he performed in different comic clubs in New York.
“I did LateNet for a while, a live show for the internet, we were
way ahead our time. People called in from all over the world to
interact with my comedians which were real A-stars. It was very
successful, we got a lot of press and great guests.” After that I
was tired, I needed some rest and ended up having a vacation
in Aruba. It is there where the journey started.”
This week Aruba Ray’s Comedy started again with show until
March 29th (some days are off, but check www.ArubaComedy.
com). Curious about Ray and his fellow comedians? Visit the
show and let your smiles flow. To Ray it is all clear: “If I am not on
stage for a week I feel weird, it is part of my system.” q