Cheech Marin

Born: July 13 1946
Where: Los Angeles, California, USA

Together with Tommy Chong, the actor, writer and director is one half of the legendary American comedy duo Cheech & Chong.

The pair enjoyed fifteen years of unbroken success from 1978 starting with the box office smash Up in Smoke and finishing with Cheech and Chong's The Corsican Brothers.

After splitting up the partnership, Marin has scored successes with his self-written movie Born in East LA and voiced Banzai in The Lion King.

In recent years, he has enjoyed a fruitful working relationship with action director Robert Rodriguez.

Marin was raised in Vancouver as a political refugee where he met Chong and began working as an improvisational comedian in his topless club.

Deciding to work as a duo, they moved to Los Angeles where they were discovered at The Troubador by music industry magnate Lou Adler.

As well as the Cheech and Chong movies, which centred around dope smoking and the Californian counter-culture, Marin also had roles in Yellowbeard and Martin Scorcese's After Hours.

After splitting with Chong, he wrote, directed and starred in Born in East LA and appearances followed in The Cisco Kid, Rude Awakening, Fatal Beauty and Shrimp on the Barbecue.

In 1995, he first teamed up with Rodriguez, playing a bartender in Desperado and subsequently a border guard in From Dusk Till Dawn.

Roles followed in Kevin Costner's golf drama Tin Cup, the Samuel L Jackson comedy The Great White Hype and and family action comedy Paulie.

Rodriguez cast him as the recurring character of Felix Gumm in the Spy Kids series and again in his long-running hitman series with Once Upon A Time in Mexico.

Recent work includes the role of a patrolman in the lacklustre seasonal comedy Christmas With The Kranks.

He is also working again with Tommy Chong on a new movie - 20 years after the last one was released.