Page 7 - MEDIA MONITORING JULY 09, 2018

LOCAL A15
Monday 9 July 2018
Ray Ellin, comedian, host and producer:
‘It Feels Good’
Continued from Page 14
Ray studied Film at College and after that he moved to New York City. He acted in many tv commercials, a few films, hosted several tv shows, and was asked to produce a comedy tour with Latino comedians throughout the States. “That gave me the idea of making the movie. I pro- duced and directed ‘The Latin Legends of Comedy’ which I financed with 6 credit cards. While I was in the middle of making the film, someone called totellmethatonly2or3 percent of all movies that are made end up being sold. But fortunately, I sold it to 20th Century Fox. Dur- ing the opening weekend, the film finished third in per- screen average behind Os- car winners The Last King of Scotland and The Queen.” The movie could have
been bigger, Ray says, but he did it all by himself and was kind of burnt out. The success of the film was meant to be: “I was at this film festival, and the oth- er film makers all brought large support staffs. I was sitting in an office in the ho- tel alone, cutting my mov- ie promo flyers by hand. They were just terrible. The
other movies had beautiful posters, I had these lousy paper flyers. A week after the festival a guy called me from a movie studio: “Can you send me a copy of your movie. I picked up your flyer at the festival and I thought it looked in- teresting’. You never know where the magic might oc- cur!“ Ray laughs out loud.
Before Ray had his suc- cesses, he had day jobs like bartending and waiting ta- bles. He even sold uniforms to mailmen, did all kinds of jobs while in the evenings he performed in different comedy clubs in New York. He found Aruba after finish- ing working on a tv show: “I hosted the talk show Late- Net for a while, a live show
for the internet, which was way ahead of its time. Peo- ple called in from all over the world to interact with my guests, who were big big stars. It did really well, was fun, got a lot of great press and amazing guests. After that show finished I needed a break, and end- ed up having a trip to Aru- ba. I fell in love with Aruba, and that is where this jour- ney started.”
The Aruba Ray’s Comedy Shows have started again with shows at the Aruba Marriott Resort & Stellaris Casino from yesterday on (some days are off, check the schedule at www.Aru- baComedy.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’s a part of my system. Eating, breathing, performing.” q