Emilio Delgado, known as Luis on “Sesame Street”, has died at 81.

His wife, Carol, told TMZ that Delgado was diagnosed with blood cancer Multiple myeloma in Dec. 2020 and was recently been in hospice. He died on March 10 at home in New York City surrounded by family.

Delgado’s agent Renee Glicker confirmed the news:

“Yes, Emilio Delgado passed away at his home here in NYC today. He had multiple myeloma. His wife Carole was his biggest fan and advocate. She travelled with him when he recently did a theatre tour of Quixote Nuevo playing the title role. Besides his work on ‘Sesame Street’ over these many years, Emilio has many TV and film credits. Most recently he was seen on ‘Law & Order’. During the pandemic he had to turn down offers for a pilot, a film and many guest appearances on TV. He had this youthful spirit and energy that will be greatly missed.”

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Delgado played Luis, the Fix-It Shop owner for 40 years starting in 1971. He took a short break in the ’80s but quickly returned to the beloved children’s program. Delgado appeared in a number of Sesame Street stage productions, conventions and other live-theatre performances.

As mentioned by his agent, he also appeared in “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit”, “House of Cards”, and more.

Most recently, he was the lead in the multi-city play Quixote Nuevo that ran until the pandemic shut down theatres.

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“I’d been trying all my professional life to be somewhere I can change that, whether I was talking about it or trying to get into a project that showed Latinos in a good light,” Delgado told the Houston Chronicle in 2020. “That’s why Sesame Street was such a good thing. For the first time on television, they showed Latinos as real human beings.”

Fans turned to Twitter to pay their respects.

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