Marco Sanchez CBS This Morning

The Thunderous Marco Sanchez

Date: April 2, 1999
Copyright 1999, CBS Worldwide Inc., All Rights Reserved

(CBS) Actor Marco Sanchez just returned to his California home after months of shooting Sons of Thunder on location in Dallas. The new CBS series is a spinoff of the popular Walker, Texas Ranger, starring Chuck Norris.

Sanchez is the son of Cuban immigrants.

"This is the country that took us in," he says. "This is where we came, [where you] do well, but don't forget where you come from."

His parents and older siblings left Cuba in the '60s, and Sanchez is proud of his heritage. At one of his favorite restaurants, El Floridita, he introduced CBS This Morning Contributor Eleanor Mondale to some of his favorite Cuban cuisine, including paella, a seafood medley with rice and saffron.

"My dad came here with not a word of English, and two kids, and worked and worked, and now he's got a construction company," says Sanchez. "And here I am, the baby of four. I'm the first one to graduate from a university, and I'm on television."

In Sons of Thunder, there's plenty of police action, crime, and punishment.

"It's a very physical kind of show," says Sanchez, "running around, jumping and fighting and shooting guns...all things that were fun as a kid playing on the playground."

And what about the scene where he gets hit by a car?

"I get to do the great Starsky and Hutch roll across the hood," he replies, proudly invoking the name of a cop show that preceded his.

What did his parents say when he told them he wanted to be an actor?

"They rolled their eyes," he replies. "They were a little scared. But, then, once I got my first job, acting had been their idea all along."

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