Antonio Mayans at 80

Antonio Mayans. Imprescindible

By Víctor Matellano

May 2, 2019

Our friend Antonio Mayans reaches eighty springs. And there is no one who believes it. Because he is young in body and spirit. The one that was an outstanding actor of the mega factory of  Samuel Bronston and fetish interpreter of Jesus Franco, continues more active than ever, always willing to film or make theater, something that, I think, is his vital engine.

Antonio Mayans in a photobusta of Stop in hell / Stop Over in Hell / Road to Hell

They say that Hitchcock said that in the cinema there is no need to work with animals, children, or Charles Laughton ... In my case I have a maxim: whenever possible, there is a possibility or an appropriate role to work with Antonio Mayans.

The great Antonio Mayans is a survivor. And an example of many eras of our cinema. It started at the big door, with the mega producer Samuel Bronston, participating in titles like “Captain Jones” and “El Cid”, thanks to his speaking English. With special prominence in “The Valley of the Fallen” or “King of Kings” where he played John, the beloved disciple.

Antonio Mayans in King of Kings

He has done (and continues to do) theater. He made fotonovelas. In cinema he has held technical positions of various kinds. And as an actor he went from blockbusters, to comedy sitcoms like ‘Stories for Television’ and ‘The City is Not for Me’, westerns like “Gunfighters of Casa Grande” or “A Man and a Colt”, exotic adventures like “The King of Africa”, and pirate films like “La Rebellion of the Buccaneers” or war film as “The Battle of the Last Panzer”, and adventures in the forest of Sherwood with “Robin Hood, the Invincible Archer”. Always combining national works with other co-productions of postíng as “La selva blanca” or “A Town Called Hell”, under the direction of Peter Collison, Ken Annakin, and Robert Parrish.

He worked with Fernando Fernán Gómez (La querida), with Jorge Grau, with Nieves Conde, and with Isasi Isasmendi. With the Italians, with Castellari, with Lenzi, with Marcello Baldi, with Tessari. With Jean Rollin, with Klimowsky, with Javier Aguirre, with Piquer Simón and with Paul Naschy. With Iquino, with Mariano Ozores, with José Luis Merino, with José Mª Forqué, with Pedro Lazaga, with Julio Pérez Tabernero ... And, above all, with Jesús Franco, in innumerable titles ranging from “Sex is Crazy” to “The Tomb of the Undead”, going through the sinking of “The House Usher” and  terror in “Sola”.

As happens to the friend Ángel Mora, who directed him in Selva roja, for me Antonio is an essential element in my work, whenever possible. Antonio is a good actor, he is a collaborator, very kind to the team, generates good weather, very disciplined, very simple in his requirements. He has the greatness of one who knows what a super production and a low-cost product is, he knows where he is at every moment, he does not lose perspective. He can be seen in a photo at a party of Nicholas Ray chatting amicably with John Wayne, but he does not give it special importance. And it's worth more for what is silent than for what counts, whether certain circumstances proper filibustrerismo filming with Jess Franco, or situations with recognized partners, see Paco Rabal in “The Invasion of the Atomic Zombies” ... Secrets, many secrets ...

Antonio Mayans in The Tomb of the Living Dead

In Uncle Jess, Hugo Stuven and I recorded him with Franco in a curious situation, maybe insane. Then in “Zarpazos”! He told us many nooks and crannies of Spanish Horror. In Wax he gave me a cameo as the gardener of “Dr. Knox”, the terrible cannibal surgeon played by Jack Taylor. There we made a small tribute to Uncle Jesus in his sequence, not so much in the style but in the way of shooting: take advantage of Franco's own shooting, his last shooting, the location, the camera, to shoot the sequence. More secrets And then in Vampyres, where Antonio probably stars in the two most expensive sequences of the film, and the most expensive of his career, scythe at the ready, star appearances, all poetry from beyond the grave. Finally, in the western “Parada en el infierno”, I was able to give him a role with more footage. There Antonio, as always, was for me an indispensable help for some very delicate moments in the shooting. He was not like the other actors, he was my accomplice in the movie.

Antonio Mayans as Dr. Knox's gardener in Wax

Antonio is great. It takes something like more than sixty years of  his career. And he has a lot of war yet to give. In fact, as a vital example, his eightieth birthday serves to release a commercially unpublished film, “Cardboard Heroes”. As before, recently, it happened with the resurrected or go honeymoon. One more.

Among my treasures at home I have the commemorative book of the shooting of “El Capitán Jones in Denia”. And I have dedicated it to four enormous professionals who worked on the film, all friends, who then began in the cinema and then held important positions: the decorator Gil Parrondo, the producer Tedy Villalba, the director of photography John Cabrera. And Antonio Mayans. They all left us now, except Mayans. He always remains. He is the survivor. Re-born.

Congratulations, dear and admired friend. Essential.

  

Filming of Vampyres with Antonio Mayans.