Actors - Paul Naschy

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	Actors - Paul Naschy

Paul Naschy (born Jacinto Molina on September 6, 1934 in Madrid) is a Spanish movie actor, screenwriter, and director working primarily in horror films. His portrayal of numerous classic horror figures--the wolfman, a hunchback, Count Dracula, a mummy--have earned him recognition as a Spanish Lon Chaney. He played his most famous character, Waldemar Daninsky, a werewolf, in several films, beginning in 1968 with La marca del hombre lobo. The King of Spain presented Naschy with that country's Gold Medal Award for Fine Arts in 2001 in honor of his work, which still continues to this day.

Early years

Paul Naschy was born Jacinto Molina Álvarez in Madrid, Spain, on 6 September 1934. As a child, he witnessed the horrors of the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939); his industrialist father managed to escape a firing squad when he was falsely denounced as a fascist by his own brother-in-law.

After spending several years living in Burgos, the family moved back to Madrid, where Naschy began to discover his love of the cinema. One of the first films he saw was, appropriately, Universal's Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943). "I had just entered the world of fantasy," he later recalled. "I knew that I wanted to go into acting, especially the fantastic and horror cinema, and above all as the character of the Wolf Man, by which I was completely fascinated."

While studying architecture at the University of Madrid, he developed his skills as a weightlifter, winning the Spanish National Championship in 1958 when he unexpectedly replaced another competitor.

Career

Because of his impressive physique, he began working in movies as an extra, appearing in the Biblical epic King of Kings (1961) and the Mainly on the Plains (1966) episode of TV's I Spy
, which also featured Boris Karloff. Finally deciding to turn his hand to writing scripts, he approached his friend, director Enrigue Lopez Eguiluz. "The only movie I took my inspiration from was Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man," he revealed. "I told Eguiluz about my intention to write a script for a horror film about a werewolf and his immediate reaction was to accuse me of insanity. The truth is that there was no tradition for this genre in Spanish cinema."

When a German comfy expressed interest in the script, the actor changed his name to Naschy, the name of a famous Hungarian weightlifter. After testing several Spanish actors to play the werewolf and even contacting Lon Chaney Jr, who turned down the role because of ill-health, the part was finally offered to Naschy. La Marca del Hombre Lobo (1967) marked the first time that the actor portrayed the doomed lycanthrope Waldemar Daninsky.

"Daninsky is a Polish name I gave to my werewolf," he explained, "thinking of the oppressed people of Poland. My character is bitter, persecuted and misunderstood, the bearer of a curse he cannot shake off. In the end he is forced to kill without wanting to.

"The fact of him bearing a pentagonal mark on his chest is a contribution of my own. So is the possibility of destroying him with a silver cross. Nevertheless, the only definitive way of eliminating him entirely is through love."

The film was finally released in America in a much-edited version in 1971 as Frankenstein's Bloody Terror. However, Naschy continued the role of El Hombre Lobo in the barely-released Nights of the Werewolf (1968), Dracula vs. Frankenstein (1969), The Fury of the Wolfman (1970) and The Werewolf vs. the Vampire Woman (1970). When Alberto Platar, the original director of the latter film, objected to Naschy playing the role of Daninsky, the German producers supported their star.

"It was I who suggested that León Klimovsky should be director", recalled Naschy, "and they liked the idea. Since then, we have been great friends. Klimovsky and I worked well together, and this led us to make other successful filmed."

The Werewolf vs. the Vampire Woman was an unexpected success and fumed Naschy into a star. "I was very surprised by this," admitted the actor. "In the end, the audience discovered my identity."

The Daninsky series continued with Dr. Jekyll and the Werewolf (1971), while Naschy went on to star as Jack the Ripper in 7 Murders for Scotland Yard (1971), the Count in Dracula's Great Love (1972), a necrophiliac graverobber in Bracula—The Terror of the Living Dead! (1972), a zombie knight in Horror Rises from the Tomb (1972) and the title character in The Hunchback of the Morgue (1972). After seeing his work in the latter film, Terence Fisher offered the actor the lead in a new version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. "Unfortunately, he was quite old and this project couldn't be accomplished due to Fisher's death," lamented the actor.

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