Cheech? Cheech’s Not Here! But He Was

Before his acting career took off with his role as half of a stoned-out, fun-loving duo from Los Angeles, Richard “Cheech” Marin spent most of his formative years in the Valley, the child of a police officer.

Marin was born in 1946 in South-Central Los Angeles to LAPD Officer Oscar Marin and his wife, Elsa, but he was raised in Granada Hills at a time when the area was less populated and still filled with orange groves.

“I went from survival to tetherball,” he told the Associated Press in 1987, of the move.

Marin, whose nickname was given to him as a child and was derived from chicharron, a deep-fried pork-skin snack, attended Alemany High School in Mission Hills. He later studied English at Cal State Northridge, which was then San Fernando Valley State College.

While in college, Marin shared a home near campus with three other students, and he was known more for his academic prowess, his stance on the peace movement and his music, than acting or comedy, a former roommate said.

In 1968, at the height of the Vietnam War, Marin left college with only eight units needed to complete a bachelor of arts degree and moved to Vancouver, Canada, to avoid the draft.

It was there that he met Tommy Chong, who would be his partner in six “Cheech and Chong” movies, from 1978’s “Up in Smoke,” to 1984’s “Cheech and Chong’s ‘The Corsican Brothers.’ ”

In 1987, Marin briefly returned to music and began a solo acting career, creating and choosing roles that allowed him to get away from his pothead persona.

Projects included his screen adaptation of his song “Born in East L.A.,” a parody of a Bruce Springsteen tune, about a third-generation American mistakenly deported to Mexico.

Marin went on to play supporting roles on TV and in movies and has often used his distinctive voice to bring animated characters to life. Most recently, he was cast in “Nash Bridges.”