Dakota Beacon

When I was a kid one of my great heroes was Zorro!  Of course my first exposure to the stories of Zorro were through the Disney TV series starring the dashing Guy Williams.  He wasn’t the first Zorro, nor by any means the last.

Zorro was actually the creation of a pulp fiction writer, Johnston McCulley.  McCulley, born in 1883, in Illinois, began as a journalist, a reporter for the Police Gazette.  After serving in the Army, McCully began writing stories and screenplays. Apparently a relatively private person, there are few details about his personal life, but he wrote under several names - Harrington Strong, Raley Brien, George Drayne, Monica Morton, Rowena Raley, Frederic Phelps, Walter Pierson, and John Mack Stone were a few of them, and he created many crime and crime-fighting characters - “The Crimson Clown”, “The Spider”, “The Black Star”, “Thubway Tham”, “The Thunderbolt”, “The Green Ghost”.  One could with truth say that many of our modern-day comic book heroes have their roots in some of these exotic characters. But of them all, the one who best captured the imagination of the public was “El Zorro”, the righter of wrongs of the early days of Spanish California!

McCully’s Spanish hero first made an appearance in “The Curse of Capistrano”, set, as the rest of the “Zorro” stories, in southern California, and published in All-Story Weekly, a popular pulp magazine in 1919.  A year later Douglas Fairbanks starred in the silent movie, The Mark of Zorro. It was a winning combination and what Johnston  had regarded as just another of his pulp heroes became a pulp celebrity, prompting McCulley to write three more novellas based on the dashing character - The Further Adventures of Zorro, Zorro Rides Again and The Sign of Zorro, while also writing a number of non-Zorro stories in between.  The success of Zorro brought about three movie serials and a movie, The Bold Caballero,  (Republic, 1937) and then, in 1940, 21 years after his first appearance, the movie, The Mark of Zorro was remade with Tyrone Power in the lead role and his love interest played by Linda Darnell with the great Basil Rathbone as the villain.  This brought the legendary hero to a new audience and greater and wider popularity. A new series of stories was commissioned by another pulp magazine, West Magazine, with one per issue, from 1944-1951.  A final story was published after McCully’s death in 1959.  

But, as I have said, my introduction to Zorro was by way of the Walt Disney series.  How I loved the haciendas, the tropical courtyards, the glistening black stallion, Tornado!  Not to mention the handsome and gallant Don Diego de la Vega. Like Batman, Zorro kept his transportation in an underground cave which he accessed by way of tunnels and secret passages in his father’s grand house.  Only his valet, the loyal and dependable Bernardo knew Diego’s secret - that he, the silly, romantic, foppish poet just arrived home to California from the luxurious gardens of Spain, was in fact the fearless savior of the people.  His father didn’t know, the dignified Alejandro de la Vega. At least he wasn’t supposed to. One always had the idea that he did suspect something. He would sort of roll his eyes at the hopeless boy, seemingly despairing that he would ever man up.  Don Alejandro had sent for him to come home hoping that he would help in the fight for justice for the poor and righteous in California, a Spanish colony which was being misgoverned and its people abused by a sadistic and dictatorial villain, Capitan Monastario.  The people were suffering under his shiny riding boot. Zorro was rich with memorable characters - the handsome elder de la Vega, the swashbuckling hero himself, his manservant, Bernardo - who was mute, which added to his interest, the beautiful stallion, Monastario’s subordinate, Sergeant Garcia.  

Little known to most of Zorro’s fans, the comic Garcia (who would be recalled in the Hogan’s Heroes character of Sergeant Schultz), a slightly lazy, clumsy fellow, overweight, not too bright, was played by a very talented singer, Henry Calvin.  Calvin had a remarkable career himself, as a successful baritone in light opera and Broadway musicals, including The Chocolate Soldier, Sally, and as the evil “Wazir” in Kismet. Whenever he could, he would sing a snatch of something as Garcia. His was a beloved character, even though he was supposed to be on the wrong side.  

Guy Williams, who played the “masked bandit” was actually born Armand Catalano to an Italian family of New York.  He was working at a soda fountain when he tested for the role. Also a singer, he was the ideal Zorro, tall, dark and of course handsome.  And he did have another advantage - he was already a very competent swordsman. His father, also a fencer, had encouraged him to take up the sport.  A totally effete dandy lounging in an embroidered jacket and ruffled shirt by day and a swirly, swashbuckling swordsman by night, “when the full moon was bright”.  How could this not capture your imagination if you were a kid? Or a girl of any age?  

This TV series was very successful, often featuring some very well-known performers - Annette Funicello, Robert Vaughn, Lee Van Cleef, Sebastian Cabot, Cesar Romero, Ricardo Montalban, Rita Moreno and others.  

This was not the last we were to hear of Zorro.  After the final run of the series both Guy Williams and Henry Calvin continued to portray their characters and numerous other stage and musical productions have been created around Zorro.  In more recent times we have had two movies starring Catherine Zeta-Jones, Antonio Banderas and Anthony Hopkins and a rather silly spoof, Zorro - the Gay Blade, starring George Hamilton as both Diego and his gay twin brother, "Ramon".  There has been a ballet, a comic book series, films in several countries starring Mexico’s Luis Aguilar in some, France’s Alain Delon in others. Movies have been made of Zorro in Italy, Spain, India, Belgium and Turkey as well. Zorro has been serialized in radio dramas.  There are video games of Zorro and cartoon characters who have been based on or inspired by him - from "El Kabong", whose weapon was the broad side of a guitar to Japanese anime.  

All in all, McCully wrote some 65 “Zorro” stories himself and it is almost impossible to count the numbers of plots and stories that have been written about Zorro since McCulley’s death.   Zorro is in the time-honored tradition of the mysterious, masked, swashbuckling hero-in-disguise who leads a dangerous double life, like the Lone Ranger or the Scarlet Pimpernel. Why is Zorro so popular and enduring?  Perhaps because from its beginning the character has attracted great stars and generally good productions, but there must be more to it. The romance of a sunlit courtyard, the strains of a Spanish guitar, a romantic poem to the soft splashing of the fountain, the drama of a dark figure in a swirling black cape on a rearing stallion, silhouetted against a full moon - hey, what’s not to love?  

Bonus:  something to watch while you stay at home this weekend - 20th Century Fox’s 

The Mark of Zorro!

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