At the crack of dawn in the middle of a sidewalk in Paris, Gonzalo Rodriguez, 68, a collector and jack-of-all-trades from Miami, scours piles of antiques and tchotchkes at a flea market when he is suddenly hit with a memory.
Two portraits, beautifully encased in an ornate bronze frame, hung in the foyer of his parents’ home in Cuba. One of his mother, looking like “the queen of England,” he says, filled him with pride and admiration. After fleeing their comfortable, upper-middle-class life in Cuba, where Rodriguez says he and his family could have “easily coasted through the revolution” due to their status, his mother, Caridad, sold the frame that cradled her portrait.
There, in a pile of otherwise mostly worthless items at the Paris flea market, lay the exact model of his mother’s frame. When he asked the seller where he had purchased the frame, the response was “Havana.”
For many Miamians, immigrants being displaced from their home countries, being forced to sell their precious possessions to survive is a harsh reality. Driven by a deep passion to preserve history, Rodriguez dedicates his time — outside of his work as a local director, producer, and theatre professor — to collecting cultural memorabilia and antiques, ensuring that their stories and the memories won’t be lost to time.
Rodriguez and his husband of 25 years, Gustavo Blanco, curate an extensive collection of historical film and fashion relics, especially those of Hollywood icons, each displayed with a love and care that transforms their home into more than just a living space.
“Collectors’ items can be very expensive in auctions, but searching for them all over the world is like finding little treasures,” Blanco says. “All worth the search to decorate your home. That’s what makes your home different from the ordinary home. You feel more cozy near these pieces. It’s good to be different and have your own style.”
Rodriguez is a key player in Miami’s local entertainment scene with a long, diverse career. As a producer and director, he is behind local projects such as Celia el Musical, which tells the life story of Celia Cruz through music, the stage adaptation of the 1993 film Fresa y Chocolate, and the reunion play of the beloved TV show Que Pasa USA. In addition to his work in entertainment, Rodriguez has served as a theatre professor at Miami-Dade College, and currently works as the director of the Leon Legacy Project for Leon Medical Centers. He is also the manager of Cuban singer-songwriter and record producer Willy Chirino.
Rodriguez isn’t motivated by the pursuit of wealth.
“A lot of people come here and they say, ‘There’s so much money here!’ but I don’t see that. I see the art. And the most special pieces here have been from the adventure of acquiring them,” says Rodriguez.
Rodriguez wants others to feel the love, history, significance, and even adventure behind the objects he collects.
“The exhibits I’m involved with — it’s basically sharing. Sharing these things so that they are well curated and tell a story. It’s reconnecting people with their history,” he says.
Among their most prized pieces are many personal items from the legendary Mexican actress María Félix.
Rodriguez would never call himself a fan. He said he thinks Felix was a “horrible actress.”
He was heartbroken to learn that Félix’s heir, a man with little regard for her legacy, had used her belongings to fund a lavish lifestyle. Despite his artistic opinion about Felix, Gonzalo reveres the actress for her elegance and role as one of the few Latina stars to break into Old Hollywood, and says her possessions deserve more respect.
“All of a sudden,” Rodriguez says, “we became the owners of this woman’s legacy.”
He meticulously displays her items, including a stunning custom Christian Dior green feathered dress, in their living room, maintaining it with care, covering it in plastic to ensure the feathers remain intact.
Another highlight of the collection is a statue that once sat atop María Félix’s grave in Mexico — a piece Rodriguez acquired in 2016 from her heir, who even offered him her entire grave. He declined the grave, but the statue atop it is now displayed in his dining room as a testament to Félix’s legacy.
Growing up, Rodriguez felt ashamed of his Hispanic heritage,and his alienation from Cuba made him feel out of place in both Latin and American cultures.
“I never really knew Cuba,” he says. “I never really knew the old Cuba, I never really knew the new Cuba.”
But everything changed when Rodriguez moved to Miami in 1976.
The city’s proximity to Latin America, coupled with the new wave of Hispanic immigrants, gave him a fresh perspective on his own community that he couldn’t get in Chicago, where he had moved with his mother.
Rodriguez reflects that his focus on stories rooted in Hispanic families and their journeys of displacement and adaptation has always been a “accident.”
“I don’t necessarily cater to the community,” he says. “Doing something more community or ethnic bound is not what I go for, yet some of my biggest successes have definitely been stuff that struck a chord with the community.”
Rodriguez recalls how in a touring exhibit he hosted in Mexico, older women would gasp in awe and kiss his cheek, thanking him. They compared the items to photographs from their past, marveling at the tangible connection to film history, and remembering their own childhoods as they admired the honor “La Doña” (Félix’s colloquial name) brought Mexico.
Blanco adds that he and Rodriguez hope these exhibits help attendees “open their appetite” toward the iconic artists they celebrate.
Rodriguez’s drive stems from a personal loss — the grief of not being able to hold on to a tangible memento of his beloved grandmother. He is determined not to let anyone else’s physical legacy slip away with time, as he feels his grandmother’s did.
“I never saw my grandparents again. And my grandparents were the center of my universe…And I think the collection of Hollywood antiques comes from not being able to preserve any of my family stuff.”
He adds, “When you get this old and you start examining, ‘Why do you do the things you do?’ I know that absolutely nothing is owned by me. We’re just trying to preserve it for you, your kids, and somebody else that will love it in the future.”
