Paul Naschy - Biography

Biography

Paul Naschy was born in 1934 in Madrid, and grew up during the Spanish Civil War, a period of great turmoil in Spanish history. His father Enrique Molina was a very successful furrier, and Naschy grew up in very comfortable surroundings. After college, Naschy started out as a professional weightlifter, but soon gravitated to filmmaking. His favorite film character from childhood was the Wolfman, dating back to when he saw the classic Universal film Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943) as a child. At times, he tried his hand at writing pulp western novels and drawing comic book stories, but did not meet with much success. In his 20's, Naschy moved back and forth between weightlifting and acting, but wasn't able to secure important roles, usually obtaining bit parts. Naschy had an uncredited bit part in the classic 1961 Biblical epic King of Kings, and the experience drew him further into filmmaking. While appearing as an extra in an episode of the American TV show I Spy that was being filmed in Spain in 1966, Naschy met horror icon Boris Karloff on the set, a thrill he never forgot. (Karloff was in a very poor mood that day, apparently depressed and in poor health.)

In 1968, at age 34, he wrote a screenplay for a werewolf movie entitled La Marca del Hombre Lobo (about a Polish werewolf named Waldemar Daninsky) and managed to interest some German producers into financing it. Naschy never intended to play "el Hombre Lobo" (as the doomed lycanthrope came to be called in Spain), he just wound up with the part when the producers couldn't find a suitable actor. (They had tried to hire Lon Chaney Jr., but at age 62, the fabled Hollywood horror star was far too sickly to travel). Naschy later wrote and starred in eleven sequels featuring his Waldemar Daninsky character, and spun off a very successful acting and directing career in the process.

Naschy wrote the screenplays for most of the films he starred in, especially the horror movies. His most prolific year was 1972, during which time he wrote and starred in no less than seven movies! During the 1970s, Naschy worked for some of the best Euro-horror film directors in the business, including Leon Klimovsky, Carlos Aured, Javier Aguirre, Jose Luis Madrid, Juan Piquer Simon, Francisco Lara Polop and Jose Luis Merino. In 1976, he decided to try his hand at directing as well, choosing the difficult costume drama Inquisition as his first project.

He did well initially, even producing and directing a number of successful Japanese/Spanish co-productions and made-for-TV documentaries, but by 1984, his films were no longer breaking even, and after losing a lot of money on his ill-conceived spy spoof Operation Mantis (1984), Naschy's production company, Aconito Films, wound up in bankruptcy.

On June 20, 1984, Naschy's father Enrique Molina died of a fatal heart attack while fishing on the shores of a lake. Some boys playing in the woods discovered his body, too late to revive him unfortunately. The unexpected sudden loss of his father (with whom he had always been very close), coinciding with the bankruptcy of his production company, plunged Naschy into a lengthy period of depression, only returning to filmmaking in 1987 with his cult classic El Aullido del Diablo. Naschy's son Sergio starred in the film, along with famed horror icons Howard Vernon and Caroline Munro (the film was very poorly distributed unfortunately).

Naschy's career took a second downturn when he suffered a near-fatal heart attack himself on Aug. 27, 1991, while weightlifting in a local gym. He was hospitalized for more than a week, then had major heart surgery performed on Sept. 5th. A rumor circulated throughout horror film fandom that Naschy had died, since he disappeared from the film scene for a while after his operation. He had to contact a number of fanzine publishers in various countries to inform them that he was still very much alive.

In 1996, Naschy wrote and starred in his eleventh werewolf film Licantropo, which he thought would be his big comeback film, but the movie didn't do well at all, critically or financially. He continued to appear in a number of low budget horror films and crime dramas however during the following decade, during which time he won a number of fan awards and appeared as a celebrated guest at many horror film conventions (both in the United States and in Europe), although he was always doing poorly financially and complained bitterly in interviews over the state of the Spanish film industry. In 1997, Naschy wrote a detailed autobiography entitled "Memoirs of a Wolfman" (which included his complete filmography as well). Naschy even travelled to Hollywood briefly in 2004 to appear in two filmed-on-video horror flicks directed by Don Glut and Fred Olen Ray, two former horror fans-turned-directors who must have treated him like royalty on the set. Although he ended his life in poor financial straits, Naschy always received a tremendous outpouring of love from his many fans and died knowing he would always be regarded as a major horror film icon. Naschy died of pancreatic cancer on November 30, 2009. He was 75 years old.

Naschy was married only once, on Oct. 24, 1969 to a woman named Elvira Primavera, the daughter of an Italian diplomat living in Spain. They were still happily married 40 years later at the time of his death. He was survived by his widow Elvira and his two sons, Bruno and Sergio Molina.