For six seasons Cheech Marin played Don Johnson’s cop partner Joe Dominguez in the popular CBS TV police series Nash Bridges in the 1990s. Both stars will reprise their roles in the upcoming special revival movie on the USA Network set to air this fall.
The new cable film Nash Bridges finds the elite, seasoned investigator duo still working in the San Francisco Police Department Special Investigative Unit two decades later. The City by the Bay has changed and law enforcement work is now data-driven and of a predictive nature. Johnson plays the leading character after whom the series is named while Marin is Joe Dominguez, Bridges’ sidekick and his second in command at SIU.
Already in post-production after shooting this spring in Northern California, the film is produced by Village Roadshow Television. Based on the original show created by Carlton Cuse, the script is by Bill Chais whose writing credits include the TNT comedy-drama series Franklin & Bash and Johnson himself. The cast includes Bonnie Somerville, Jeff Perry, Joe Dinicol, Paul James, Diarra Kilpatrick, Alexia Garcia and Jordyn Curet.
The Nash Bridges film stands out among USA Network’s three original movies on a long slate of projects recently announced by NBCUniversal Television and Streaming, the cable channel’s parent company. The other two original features will be the slasher reboot Slumber Party Massacre, also set to air this fall, and Bring It On: Halloween, a horror spin on and the rom-com sports drama Bring It On film franchise, slated for broadcast in 2022. All these films and other projects are part of NBCUniversal’s efforts to keep USA Network among the top five ad-supported cable channels in the coveted 18-45 demographics.
Nash Bridges’ Joe Dominguez may be the most prominent, and longest-lived, TV role in Marin’s career. An inspector hoping to retire at the beginning of the series, Dominguez is convinced by Capt. Bridges to stay on by making him a lieutenant. He’s a funny, witty sidekick who also dreams of striking it rich through various schemes. He eventually forms a detective agency with his boss to supplement their incomes.
The role won Marin one nomination to the NCLR Bravo Award and another four for the Alma Awards.
Best known as a comedic actor, Marin was one half of the funny duo Cheech & Chong which produced award-winning comedy recordings and several films and from the early 1970s before disbanding in 1985. The pair’s movie credits include the stoner comedies Up in Smoke, Cheech & Chong’s Next Movie, Nice Dreams, Things Are Tough All Over, Still Smokin, Cheech & Chong’s The Corsican Brothers and Get Out of My Room — the latter the last film the pair did together.
The duo also put out nine comedy albums, six of which received Grammy nominations with Los Cochinos winning the Academy Award for Best Comedy Recording in 1975.
In 1987, Marin directed, wrote and starred in what may be his most famous film, Born in East L.A. The comedy feature won three awards at the Havana Film Festival. Other credits include the series Married With Children, Judging Amy, Lost and the films The Lion King, Desperado, Tin Cup, and the Spy Kids and Cars film franchise.
Marin’s role in Nash Bridges the series was reportedly his second full-time job as a TV actor. The first one was The Golden Palace, the short-lived spinoff of the multiple Emmy Award-winning comedy series The Golden Girls.
More recently Marin appeared in the comedy feature The War With Grandpa, starring Robert De Niro and Uma Thurman, and lent his voice to Elena of Avalor, the multiple Daytime Emmy Award-winning animated TV series starring Aimee Carrero, Jenna Ortega and Christian Lanz.
Marin is an avid collector of Chicano art. Two national touring exhibitions have featured works from his private collection. Marin started collecting Chicano art in the 1980s. He feels that it’s important to “use his celebrity status to call attention to what he saw as an under-appreciated and under-represented style of art”, he once told the The Roanoke Times. In collaboration with the city of Riverside, California, and the Riverside Art Museum, Marin established The Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art, Culture & Industry, now knows as The Cheech in the City of Riverside, which is due to open in 2021.
