Fernando Martinez is a recurring radio personality in many Grand Theft Auto games, starting with Grand Theft Auto III. After Lazlow, Fernando Martinez is the character with the most appearances in the game series. He is voiced in all his appearances by Frank Chavez. Although he speaks fluent English, sometimes he says Spanish words, at those moments he reveals that he has a natural Puerto Rican accent.
Fernando Martinez in the games is a longrunning radio host with a career on and off radios for almost 30 years. However, he comes across as a "Latin lover" who seduces all the women he meets and who has a passionate and lustful personality. He frequently loses himself in his musings, poetic yet eccentric, about subjects such as passion and romance. He likes to give tips on how to get the women and how to secure the "passion" on a relationship. He holds sexist views on women, which come to bite him later on his career as views on gender roles change more and more in society. His personal life also is implied to have gone downhill later on his career with some personal problems. All of these qualities are played for laughs in the games.
Background
His radio career dates back to at least 1984, as the co-host of Emotion 98.3 during the events of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories. He originally shared the show with Lionel Makepeace, who was often at odds with him and did not understand Fernando's poetic yet shallow monologues about passion and lust. By the events of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, he had proved popular enough that he hosted the show himself by 1986, possibly because his philosophy on passion fit much better in the era than Makepeace's deeper more sensitive views on the subject. Around this time Martinez also did a commercial for Medallion Man advertised on radio stations throughout Vice City. At one point, he details how, during one of his visits to the Malibu Club, he happened upon a lonely woman and introduced her to an Englishman named Kent Paul, and thus realized that he had a "gift for bringing people together", possibly foreshadowing his future business venture.
Sometime after 1986, he was fired from Emotion 98.3 and forced out of Vice City for an unknown reason. He then moved to San Andreas where he became the improvised host of Lonely Hearts on WCTR after hijacking the show from then-current host Christy MacIntyre in 1992 during the events of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.
In Grand Theft Auto III, he resurfaces in 2001 running a program in Liberty City called "Fernando's New Beginnings", where husbands relieve the stress of married life by getting a mistress. He is interviewed on Chatterbox FM by Lazlow. When asked about his ethnic background, he says he is "Latin" but later claims that he is from Upstate Liberty. Lazlow eventually gets fed up when he realizes "Fernando's New Beginnings" is nothing more than a brothel, and ends the interview by yelling "You're just a cheap pimp from Upstate, get out of my studio!". This "early installment" feature about Fernando not being a Latin was later retconned, and eventually he became explicitly stated as an immigrant from a Latin American country.
In 2008, he resurfaces again in Grand Theft Auto: Episodes From Liberty City as the host of the episodes' exclusive radio station Vice City FM in Liberty City. He admits that he has several children, is a registered sex offender not allowed within five miles of a school, and has a sexually transmitted disease.
By 2013, Fernando is once again living in San Andreas, again working for WCTR, and can be heard on the radio in Grand Theft Auto V. He has his own program called "The Fernando Show", where he is seemingly trying to give up his outdated and sexist womanizing ways and trying, though very frequently failing, to respect women and treat them as something more than just sex objects.
During his interview with Sue Murry, he shows sexual attraction towards her (despite earlier implying that he is either married to or living with the mother of his children) and is unable to refrain from continuously hitting on her until eventually she becomes outraged and leaves the studio, accusing Fernando of being a "woman hater" due to his sexist remarks and behavior.
In GTA V, Fernando reveals that he is actually an illegal immigrant that got to the United States of America by outrunning a speed boat, presumably referring to the country's Border Patrol.
Fernando often refers to himself in the third person.
Quotes
- "I have worked in a lot of radio stations, but Vice City FM really makes the ladies wet. Fernando loves an '80s slut - not too much hair downstairs, comprendez? Don't give up the dream, Fernando will take you back."
- "You know, Liberty City used to be a lot more fun. In the old days, you could fill your nose full of powder, and your loins full of passion twenty four hours a day. A man could beg, borrow, and steal his way to a fortune, and be loaded for it. Now, the place is run by robots! No longer can a wise man bring to his fellows the joy of partnership - the beauty of love. People, they call me dirty words - words like 'pimp' and 'statutory rapist', but I say you are beneath me. I, Fernando Martinez, am not about nostalgia. I am not a freak show, playing to your memories of better times. I am the American Dream - a self-made man bringing happiness ... capturing fire."
- "There are many politics of dancing - this is Re-Flex."
- "Ooh, I am Wet Wet Wet for this song..."
- "This is Texas, with 'I Don't Want A Lover'. What's wrong with you, Texas, are you gay?"
- "Robbie Nevil, give us that French song 'C'est la vie'!"
- "Fernando wants to be your Cuddly Toy, amore."
- "What do you do when the passion becomes so intense that the woman's water breaks? Take it from Fernando - call a taxi, because when the husband finds out, you are in a lot of trouble."
- "From time to time, people come to the radio station and say 'I am looking for my papa Fernando'. I say 'I am sorry, but your father - he is dead. I am just the janitor.'
- "What is romance? What is passion? Maybe a sexy t-shirt that says 'Cunnilingus Instructor'. Maybe it is the mudflaps on your truck, with the silhouette of the naked lady. People ask me 'Is it better to be a DJ or a saviour?' I have been both, and trust me, both have their benefits. Now, we remember the great music of the 1980s. You may not believe this, but we did not have the internet then. When you found a magazine with the pictures of the naked ladies, it was heaven! The promised land! You hide it. Your mother comes into the room without knocking, and you are working yourself into a froth. This - this is the American childhood I longed to have, and it is how I have raised my sons."
- "Fernando loves it when a boy meets a girl. This is 'Waiting For A Star'."
- "Can you believe this? Women's rights? What about women's wrongs? Fernando knows that when a woman says no, she is very wrong."
- "Fernando has a lot of viruses on his laptop - it burns. He is going to call up Tech Support and make the phone sex with the lady, then maybe she will send me a new one."
- "Commercials are all we have left in the world - that and swine flu from having sex with a fat woman."
- "You want a commercial? No? Tough shit, buddy. Sponsors and payola are how Fernando makes money."
- "Fernando was surprised to discover that in this country they allow women to vote! Incredible! Can you believe it? A creature as delicate and enticing as a woman allowed to make decisions? For me, a woman has only one decision - front or back. Politics, like hunting, like showering, is for men. Women take baths, and think about puppies, and amore. My women never vote - this is why I keep them illegal."
- "Maybe you think the government is spying on you. They know of the little latina you have been text messaging, saying you are rock hard, with passion. Then you realise you have text messaged the wrong person. Now your best friend thinks you are gay. Life is full of surprises!"
- "You realise how old these songs are - how old you are. Your life is nearly over, Fernando's is just beginning ... again ..."
- "This is a request from my woman in Bohan. She says 'Find The Time'".
- "I hope you are with a lady this afternoon, even if you are a lady. This is passion."
- "Good morning, Alderney. Fernando would like to apologise for what he did on the bridge last night. I was very drunk."
- "And remember, the passion. She is back on The Fernando Show."
- "Fernando became an American the courageous way. By outrunning the speed boat."
- "A powerful bear who loves his honey."
- "You are probably just going to spend a lot of time redecorating, and looking through catalogues".
Trivia
- Martinez has appeared in almost every Grand Theft Auto game from the 3D Universe onward, the exceptions being GTA Advance, GTA Liberty City Stories, GTA IV, and GTA Chinatown Wars. He has the second-highest number of appearances in the series, only behind Lazlow.
- Fernando's backstory from the 3D Universe is also one of the few to be canon to the HD Universe.
- Fernando is one of the two fictional DJs to appear in Episodes From Liberty City, along with Audrey. The rest are either musicians, actual DJs or other media personalities (discounting The Journey, which is hosted by a computer).