| Paul Naschy | |
|---|---|
| Born | Jacinto Molina Álvarez September 6, 1934 Madrid, Spain |
| Died | November 30, 2009 (aged 75) Madrid, Spain |
| Occupation | Actor, Director, Screenwriter |
Paul Naschy (born Jacinto Molina Alvarez, September 6, 1934, Madrid – November 30, 2009, Madrid)[1] was a Spanish movie actor, screenwriter, and director working primarily in horror films. His portrayals of numerous classic horror figures—the wolfman, the hunchback, Count Dracula, the mummy—have earned him recognition as the Spanish Lon Chaney. He was also known as the "Boris Karloff of Spain" and he had one of the most recognizable faces in Spanish horror film.[2] King Juan Carlos I presented Naschy with Spain's Gold Medal Award for Fine Arts in 2001 in honor of his work. Paul Naschy died in 2009 from pancreatic cancer.
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The werewolf Waldemar Daninsky (known in Spain as "El Hombre Lobo") is without a doubt Paul Naschy's most famous horror character, since he played Daninsky in 12 different films. In fact, Naschy holds the record for playing a werewolf the most number of times, easily beating out the great Lon Chaney Jr. (who played a Wolf Man only seven times during his career).
Unlike the Chaney Universal films, however, which formed a somewhat chronological storyline from picture to picture, Naschy's Daninsky films were not connected to each other plotwise. Each film was more or less a free-standing story that wasn't meant to relate to the other films in the series the way the old Universal Wolf Man movies often interconnected. Daninsky's lycanthropy had a different origin in each film (which many Naschy film buffs find confusing). This was probably for the best however, since in the 1970s, Euro-horror films were often theatrically distributed in the USA years after they were completed, and they probably would've all been released out of chronological order anyway.
Naschy's only other recurring character was the villainous medieval warlock Alaric de Marnac (who appeared in Naschy's Horror Rises From the Tomb (1972) and returned to life again in Panic Beats (1982)). Naschy claims he based this character on a real-life medieval nobleman named Gilles de Rais, a bizarre serial killer on whose life story Naschy also based the lead character in his 1974 film The Marshall From Hell.
Naschy's twelve "Hombre Lobo" movies are not a series in the strictest sense. They seem to be a collection of unrelated plotlines, but all of which involve a werewolf named Waldemar Daninsky. Both "Fury of the Wolfman" and "Curse of the Beast" refer to an origin involving Waldemar's being bitten by a yeti, but other films present him with entirely different origin stories. The fact that these films have also been retitled by the various film distributors many times over the years only adds to the confusion. Despite the numerous plot inconsistencies and convoluted flashbacks, however, Naschy's Wolf Man series as a whole is still considered his most famous work by most of his many fans.
Only eleven of the 12 "Hombre Lobo" films actually exist today. All traces of the 1968 "Nights of the Wolf Man" apparently vanished before the film was ever released, and it remains a mystery to this day whether or not the film ever really existed at all in completed form. (The French producer of the film, one Rene Govar, is said to have died in a car accident in Paris the week after the film was completed, and no one ever picked up the lab bill that was outstanding. Hence it is theorized that the lab may have confiscated the film negative and years later they may have just discarded it. Naschy claimed he only became aware decades later that the film had never been released anywhere.) Some Naschy fans think the film was scrapped by the producer before it was completed and the script was perhaps later rewritten to become the 4th film in the series, "Fury of the Wolf Man" (1970). This is possible since Naschy himself vaguely remembered both films as having almost the same exact plot!
In order of production, the "Hombre Lobo" films are as follows:
Other Paul Naschy Werewolf films not involving the Waldemar Daninsky character:
Paul Naschy starred in other horror films that did not feature el Hombre Lobo, as well as a number of crime films, costume dramas, action thrillers, etc. Below is a list of his other horror & science fiction movies, in chronological order of production. This information was taken from Naschy's own autobiography and the release date information is much more accurate than that found on imdb.com and other websites....
Trivia Note* Spanish comic-book Iberia Inc. by Carlos Pacheco and Rafael Marín mentioned a movie entitled Casta de Heroes (supposedly directed by Jesús Franco) about Spanish superheroes from the past in which Paul Naschy played "The Ogre", a character inspired by lycanthropic villain Lince Dorado. Unsatisfied with this portrayal of himself, Lince Dorado arranged for the original to be lost, and no copy of the film is said to exist.
The only horror film actor who ever portrayed Dracula, The Mummy, Frankenstein, Fu Manchu, the Hunchback, Rasputin, a Warlock, a Zombie, a medieval Inquisitor and a Serial Killer (not to mention a Werewolf in 15 different films!) [3], died on November 30, 2009 from pancreatic cancer in Madrid.[4] Paul Naschy will surely be remembered as one of the most prolific and truly dedicated horror film actors in cinematic history.