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He was only six years old when he started composing music under the protection of his brother Enrique. After the Spanish Civil War he was able to continue his studies at the Real Conservatorio de Madrid, where he finished piano and harmony. Being a Bachelor of Law and an easy-read novel writer (under the pseudonym David Khume), he signed on to enter the Instituto de Investigaciones y Experiencias Cinematográicas (IIEC), where he stayed for only two years, while he worked simultaneously as a director and theater actor. Later he went to Paris to study directing techniques at the I.D.H.E.C. (University of Sorbonne), where he used to go into seclusion for hours to watch films at the film archive. Back in Spain he began rted his huge cinematographic work as a composer, with Cómicos (1954) and El hombre que viajaba despacito (1957), and later worked as an assistant director to Juan Antonio Bardem, León Klimovsky, Luis Saslavsky, Julio Bracho, Fernando Soler and Joaquín Luis Romero Marchent, among others. He also worked at Ágata Films S.A. as production manager and writer. His first works as a director were industrial and cultural short films. However, he soon applied all his knowledge and experience to his feature directorial debut, Tenemos 18 años (1959). From that moment on all his work was supported by co-production. His Succubus (1968) was nominated for the Festival of Berlin, and this event gave him an international reputation. His career got more and more consolidated in the following years, and his endless creativity enabled him to tackle films in all genres, from "B" horror films to pure hardcore sex films. His productions have always been low-budget, but he nevertheless managed to work extraordinarily quickly, often releasing several titles at the same time, using the same shots in more than one film. Some of his actors relate how they they were hired for one film and later saw their name in two or more different ones. As the Spanish cinema evolved, Jesús managed to adapt to the new circumstances and always maintained a constant activity, activity that gave a place in his films to a whole filming crew. Apart from his own production company, Manacoa Films, he also worked for companies like Auster Films S.L. (Paul Auster), Cinematográfica Fénix Films (Arturo Marcos), the French Comptoir Français du Film (Robert de Nesle), Eurociné (Daniel Lesoeur and Marius Lesoeur), Elite Films Productions (Erwin C. Dietrich), Spain's Fervi Films (Fernando Vidal Campos) or Golden Films Internacional S.A. He acted in almost all of his films, playing musicians, lawyers, porters and others, all of them sinister, manic and comic characters. Among the aliases he used--apart from Jesús Franco, Jess Franco or Franco Manera--were Jess Frank, Robert Zimmerman, Frank Hollman, Clifford Brown, David Khune, Frarik Hollman, Toni Falt, James P. Johnson, Charlie Christian, David Tough, Cady Coster, Lennie Hayden, Lulú Laverne and Betty Carter. Lina Romay has been almost a constant in his films, and it's very probable that in some of them she has been credited as the director instead of him. In many of the more than 180 films he's directed he has also worked as composer, writer, cinematographer and editor. His influence has been notable all over Europe (he even contacted producer Roger Corman in the US). From his huge body of work we can deduce that Jesús Franco is one of the most restless directors of Spanish cinema. Many of his films have had problems in getting released, and others have been made directly for video. His work is often a do-it-yourself effort. More than once his staunchest supporters have found his "new" films to contain much footage from one or more of his older ones. Jesús Franco is a survivor in a time when most of his colleagues tried to please the government censors. He broke with all that and got the independence he was seeking. He always went upstream in an ephemeral industry that fed opportunists and curbed the activity of many professionals. Jess Franco died in Malaga, Spain, on April 2, 2013, of a stroke.

Stunningly comely and slinky brunette Lina Romay rates highly as one of the boldest, most sensuous, and enticing actresses to have appeared with tremendous frequency in a large volume of European horror and exploitation features made from the early 1970s to the early 21st century.

Romay was born Rosa Maria Almirall on June 25, 1954, in Barcelona, Cataluna, Spain. Her cinematic pseudonym was taken from Lina Romay, a singer/actress in mambo king Xavier Cugat's band in the 1940s. Following graduation from high school, Romay studied the arts, married actor/photographer Raymond Hardy (they later divorced), and began acting in stage productions. Lina first met infamous and prolific maverick Spanish independent filmmaker Jesús Franco in the early 1970s. Romay and Franco eventually became a couple. Lina for a long time was Franco's common law wife until they officially wed on April 23, 2008.

Lina made her film debut as a gypsy girl in The Erotic Rites of Frankenstein (1973). She had small parts in a few other Franco films before playing more substantial lead and co-starring roles (she acted in over 100 Franco films). Despite her lack of formal training, Lina nonetheless naturally projected an extremely brazen, earthy, and uninhibited screen presence that was both alluring and captivating in equal measure. In fact, her open, unabashed, and downright aggressive sexuality even led to her willing and enthusiastic participation in explicit scenes in hardcore porno fare. Lina's most memorable roles include the voracious Countess Irina Karlstein in Female Vampire (1973), brutalized innocent Maria in the sensationally sleazy Barbed Wire Dolls (1976), vicious top con Juana in the similarly scuzzy Ilsa, the Wicked Warden (1977), especially inspired in a dual part in Die Marquise von Sade (1976) and bawdy prostitute Marika in the gloomy Jack the Ripper (1976).

Moreover, Romay posed for nude pictorials in such men's magazines as "Cinema X" and "Sex Stars System." In addition to acting, Lina also worked on a handful of films as a writer, director, producer, and assistant editor. In real life Lina was the total radical opposite of her wild and outrageous screen persona: she was a very quiet, soft-spoken, and self-effacing woman who usually dressed in frumpy clothes. Romay died from cancer at age 57 on February 15, 2012 in Malaga, Spain.

Stanley Baker was unusual star material to emerge during the Fifties - when impossibly handsome and engagingly romantic leading men were almost de rigueur. Baker was forged from a rougher mould. His was good-looking, but his features were angular, taut, austere and unwelcoming. His screen persona was taciturn, even surly, and the young actor displayed a predilection for introspection and blunt speaking, and was almost wilfully unromantic. For the times a potential leading actor cast heavily against the grain. Baker immediately proved a unique screen presence - tough, gritty, combustible - and possessing an aura of dark, even menacing power.

Stanley Baker came from rugged Welsh mining stock - and as a lad was unruly, quick to flare, and first to fight. But like his compatriot and friend Richard Burton, the young Baker was rescued from a gruelling life of coal mining by a local teacher, Glyn Morse, who recognized in the proud and self-willed lad a potent combination of a fine speaking voice, a smouldering intensity, and a strong spirit. And like Burton, Stanley Baker was specially and specifically tutored for theatrical success. In fact, early on, Burton and Baker appeared together on stage as juveniles in The Druid's Rest, in Cardiff, in Wales. But later, by way of Birmingham Repertory Theatre and then the London stage, Stanley Baker charted his inevitable course toward the Cinema.

Film welcomed the adult Baker as the embodiment of evil. Memorable early roles cast the actor in feisty unsympathetic parts - from the testy bosun in Captain Horatio Hornblower (1951) to his modern-day counterpart in The Cruel Sea (1953), to the arch villains in Hell Below Zero (1954) and Campbell's Kingdom (1957) to the dastardly Mordred in Knights of the Round Table (1953) and the wily Achilles in Helen of Troy (1956). For a time there was a distillation of Baker's screen persona in a series of roles as stern and uncompromising policemen - in Violent Playground (1958), Chance Meeting (1959), and Hell Is a City (1960). But despite never having been cast as a romantic leading man, and being almost wholly associated with villainous roles, Stanley Baker nevertheless became a star by dint of his potent personality.

Although now enthroned by enthusiastic audiences Stanley Baker was obviously aware he need not desert unsympathetic parts - and his relish in playing the scheming Astaroth in Sodom and Gomorrah (1962) and the unscrupulous mobster Johnny Bannion in The Concrete Jungle (1960) was readily evident. But soon there were more principled, if still surly characters, in The Guns of Navarone (1961), The Games (1970), Eva (1962), and Accident (1967), the latter two films reuniting Baker with the American expatriot director of The Criminal, Joseph Losey. Stanley Baker also established a fruitful working relationship with the American director Cy Endfield, following their early collaboration on Hell Drivers (1957). When Baker inaugurated his own film production company - it was Endfield he commissioned to write and direct both Zulu (1964) and Sands of the Kalahari (1965), with Baker allotting himself the downbeat roles of the martinet officer John Chard in Zulu and the reluctant hero Mike Bain in The Sands Of The Kalahari.

Baker must have felt more assured in disenchanted roles - as further films from Baker's own stable still promoted the actor in either criminal or villainous mode - as gangster Paul Clifton in Robbery (1967) and the corrupt thief-taker Jonathan Wild in Where's Jack? (1969). The success of Baker's own productions was timely and did much to enhance the prestige of what was then considered an ailing British film industry. Stanley Baker also took the opportunity to move into the realm of television, appearing in, among other productions, the dramas The Changeling (1974) and Robinson Crusoe (1974), and also in the series How Green Was My Valley (1975).

Knighted in 1976 it was evident that Stanley Baker may well have continued to greater heights, both as an actor and a producer, but he succumbed to lung cancer and died at the early age of forty-eight. But his legacy is unquestioned. He was a unique force on screen, championing characterizations that were not clichéd or compromised. He established his own niche as an actor content to be admired for peerlessly portraying the disreputable and the unsympathetic. In that he was a dark mirror, more accurately reflecting human frailty and the vagaries of life than many of his more romantically or heroically inclined contemporaries. There have forever been legions of seemingly interchangeable charming and virile leading men populating the movies - but Stanley Baker stood almost alone in his determination to be characterized and judged by portraying the bleaker aspects of the human condition. Consequently, more than twenty-five years after his death, his sombre, potent personality still illuminates the screen in a way few others have achieved.

Madeleine Lebeau was born on 10 June 1923 in Antony, Seine [now Hauts-de-Seine], France. She was an actress, known for Casablanca (1942), 8½ (1963) and Gentleman Jim (1942). She was married to Tullio Pinelli and Marcel Dalio. She died on 1 May 2016 in Estepona, Malaga, Spain.

José Ramón Larraz was born on 7 February 1929 in Barcelona, Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. He was a director and writer, known for Symptoms (1974), Whirlpool (1970) and Los ritos sexuales del diablo (1982). He died on 3 September 2013 in Málaga, Málaga, Andalucía, Spain.

Immediately after her victory in the world of beauty, the world of cinema took interest in her. In Wholesome Married Life, directed by Roberto Bodegas and written by José Luis Garci, she played the temptress of José Sacristán, a married man obsessed with publicity. In Tocata y fuga de Lolita, by Antonio Drove, she was the rebellious girl who displayed her beautiful bust, a big contributor to the movie's popularity. In the 70's, Spanish cinema was at the height of destape [double meaning: "liberalization" and "nudity"], and the splendid figure of Amparo Muñoz found 9 titles in which to reveal itself, including Sensualidad (Germán Lorente, 1975), Clara is the Price (Vicente Aranda, 1975), and The Other Bedchamber (Eloy de la Iglesia, 1976).

After appearances in Volvoreta (José Antonio Nieves Conde, 1976), Mauricio, mon amour (Juan Bosch, 1976), Acto de posesión (Javier Aguirre, 1977), and Del amor y de la muerte (Antonio Giménez Rico, 1977), among other films, her cinematic career took a notable turn when she began a relationship with the producer Elías Querejeta, facilitating her appearances in films as important as Mama's 100th Birthday (Carlos Saura, 1979) and Dedicatoria (Jaime Chávarri, 1980), which called her to the attention of other directors in both Spain and Mexico, such as Felipe Cazals (The Seven Cuckoos), Antonio Artero (Take That, Bitch), Pilar Miró (We Will Speak Tonight), Fernando Méndez-Leite (Summertime Sonata), Jaime Camino (The Open Balcony), Emilio Martínez Lázaro (Lulú of the Night), Imanol Uribe (The Black Moon), and Fernando León de Aranoa (Familia).

Actress (b. Valladolid, Spain, Dec. 3, 1953). After having studied simultaneously Philosophy and Art and Speech (both careers remained unfinished), she became a household name overnight as one of the pretty and "bespectacled" hostesses of the top-rated TV contest "1, 2, 3, Responda Otra Vez", where she popularized what was going to be her early screen persona: platinum blonde-dyed hair, provocative ways and a sensuality always ready to break out. She made her film debut in 1972, at 19, and acquired an enormous popularity thanks to her tremendous sex-appeal and a clever promotion campaign that exploited a certain similarity between her looks and those of the late Marilyn Monroe to the extent of making a successful movie named precisely "The New Marilyn" (1976). She kept this image for a while (especially in her spectacular TV appearances in the mid-70s), but eventually got tired of it and decided to cut off her hair completely (she did it herself with a pair of scissors borrowed from a filming kit) and let it grow its natural dark colour again. Blonde or brunette, Lys grabbed a long string of femme fatale roles in films of each and every genre (thrillers, comedies, dramas, westerns, etc.) and turned into some kind of domestic myth at that time. (She also had the advantage of owning a fine diction that matched her thought-provoking voice perfectly, so, unlike some other actresses of that era, she didn't need to be dubbed.) Anyway, after leading her bold image one step further in the late 70s, she decided to stop making films and concentrate on her theatrical work, that she had started in 1973 playing Dª Inés de Ulloa in Zorrilla's "Don Juan Tenorio" with her own company. In the 1980s she focused her activity on recording music (which she did with real gusto and vocal dexterity), performing in both musical shows and dramatic or comic plays in which she displayed an image far removed from the one that shot her to fame and even making more sporadic appearances on TV (playing, for example, a splendid Portia on a small-screen adaptation of Shakespeare's "The Merchant Of Venice"). The late 80s saw her returning to the movies and scoring some films of uneven success and quality, although she has always risen to the occasion. In any case, she is still an underestimated actress, though she has proved capable of giving such amusing characterizations as that of "Avisa A Curro Jiménez" (1978), where she seemed almost unrecognizable. Now she leads a rather reclusive life when not working (in contrast to the antics and eccentricities of her early career) and, although she has never married, she enjoys a very stable relationship with Fernando, her partner of some 20 years. Hers is really one of those examples of body-with-a-brain-on-top-to-match, and hopefully she will still be around for a large number of years.

Carlos Larrañaga was born on 11 March 1937 in Barcelona, Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. He was an actor, known for Farmacia de guardia (1991), Sunday Light (2007) and Las verdes praderas (1979). He was married to Ana Escribano, María Teresa Ortiz-Bau, Ana Diosdado and Mar��a Luisa Merlo. He died on 30 August 2012 in Benalmádena, Málaga, Andalucía, Spain.

Ivor Emmanuel was born on 7 November 1927 in Margam, Port Talbot, West Glamorgan, Wales, UK. He was an actor, known for Zulu (1964), Plain and Fancy (1956) and Secombe and Friends (1959). He was married to Malinee Oppenborn, Patricia Bredin and Jean Beazleigh. He died on 19 July 2007 in Malaga, Spain.

Ángel Aranda was born on 18 September 1934 in Jaén, Andalucía, Spain. He was an actor, known for Javier y los invasores del espacio (1967), Planet of the Vampires (1965) and The Last Days of Pompeii (1959). He died on 21 April 2024 in Málaga, Spain.

Richard Münch was born on 10 January 1916 in Giessen, Germany. He was an actor, known for Patton (1970), The Miracle of Father Malachia (1961) and The Longest Day (1962). He was married to Ella Büchi. He died on 6 June 1987 in Malaga, Spain.

Dyanik Zurakowska was born on 22 March 1947 in Elisabethville, Congo. She was an actress, known for Cauldron of Blood (1968), La llamada (1966) and The Destructors (1974). She died on 24 January 2011 in Malaga, Spain.

A brilliant blues and rock guitarist and successful singer-songwriter, Gary Moore has nevertheless always been rather underrated, especially in the United States, where he was never a major artist and rarely gets ranked highly in the usual "best guitarist" lists. He was born and raised in Belfast and played in the line-ups of several local bands during his teenage years, before moving to Dublin, Ireland, after being asked to join Skid Row. Moore later played with Phil Lynott in Thin Lizzy and joined the British jazz-rock band Colosseum II. He also had a successful solo career with eleven UK Top 40 single releases, which included the top ten songs "Parisienne Walkways" and "Out in the Fields" (a collaboration with Lynott), and he peaked in popularity with his best-selling album "Still Got the Blues" in 1990, which was on the UK album chart for 26 weeks.

Moore tragically died aged just 58 in 2011. He was never one of the biggest rock stars in the world but he was revered by many British and Irish guitarists and guitar fans, frequently written about in the British guitar press and magazines such as Classic Rock, and left a tremendous legacy of music ranging from blues to hard rock to ballads.

Julio Peña was born on 18 June 1912 in Madrid, Spain. He was an actor and producer, known for Horror Express (1972), Solomon and Sheba (1959) and The Castilian (1963). He was married to Susana Canales. He died on 27 July 1972 in Marbella, Málaga, Andalucía, Spain.

David Oxley was born on 7 November 1920 in Wellington, Somerset, England, UK. He was an actor, known for The Hound of the Baskervilles (1959), Saint Joan (1957) and BBC Sunday-Night Theatre (1950). He died on 30 October 1985 in Malaga, Spain.

Sammy was born in Gateshead and played in several local bands including 'Pigmeat'. In 1973 he and other local actors setup the 'Live Theatre Company' in Newcastle.

However, Sammy was best known as the lovable Stick in the Hit BBC series Spender (1991).

Espartaco Santoni was born on 14 June 1932 in Carúpano, Venezuela. He was an actor and producer, known for The Castilian (1963), The Feast of Satan (1971) and Death Will Have Your Eyes (1974). He was married to Eva Medina, Carolina Zapata, Natividad de las Casas, Carmen Cervera, Analía Gadé, Tere Velázquez, Marujita Díaz, Maruja Valdez and María de los Ángeles. He died on 3 September 1998 in Marbella, Málaga, Andalucía, Spain.

Slavko Vorkapich was born on 17 March 1894 in Dobrinci near Sremska Mitrovica, Austria-Hungary [now Serbia]. He was a director, known for Hanka (1955), Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) and The Life and Death of 9413, a Hollywood Extra (1928). He died on 20 October 1976 in Mijas, Málaga, Andalucía, Spain.

Being the son of actor / theatre director Gösta Ekman, it was natural for him to start a career in the movie business. He was first noticed for playing against his father in Intermezzo (1936). He also showed a talent for writing, and his first script was filmed as Blixt och dunder (1938). Producer Lorens Marmstedt gave him the chance to make a successful directing debut with Med dej i mina armar (1940) at the age of 24. During the following years he could mix light comedies with drama. His Kungliga patrasket (1945) was a semi-biographical rendition of the life of an acting family. During the 1940s he kept up a high tempo making movies, with at least two movies every year. When Ingmar Bergman made his debut in the late 1940s, the critics began to compare the two young directors, a comparison who eventually became less and less favorable for Ekman. In 1950 he made the movie that he considered his best, Girl with Hyacinths (1950). From the middle of the 1950s, his directing and writing became more and more of a routine, more and more predictable, concentrating on light comedies with Sickan Carlsson. After his last movie in 1964 he went over to make revues with Karl Gerhard and Povel Ramel.

Don Jaime de Mora y Aragón was born on 19 July 1925 in Madrid, Spain. He was an actor, known for Los extremeños se tocan (1970), Love and Pain and the Whole Damn Thing (1973) and Carola de día, Carola de noche (1969). He was married to Margit Ohlson and Rosita Arenas. He died on 26 July 1995 in Marbella, Málaga, Andalucía, Spain.

Spanish actress. Parents: Antonio Nile (guitar player) and Rosario del Río. She was born during an artistic tournee of her parents in Argentina. She lived in Málaga till she the age of 12. There she studied dance. When she was 12 years old, she debuted in the comedy theatre of Buenos Aires with the help of Pastora Imperio who calls her Petite Imperio. That was her artistic name during the next years, when she had a great success in several countries in southAmerica. In 1926 she came back to Spain and adopted the artistic name of Imperio Argentina, singing in the main theaters of the country. The film director Florián Rey discovered her in the Romea theater in Madrid and then she played La hermana San Sulpicio (1927).

Chete Lera was born in 1949 in A Estrada, Pontevedra, Galicia, Spain. He was an actor, known for Open Your Eyes (1997), El niño de barro (2007) and Lost in Galicia (2009). He was married to Miriam Montilla. He died on 19 May 2022 in Málaga, Andalucía, Spain.

Allen Carr was born on 2 September 1934 in Putney, London, England, UK. He was a writer, known for La Page 99 de Gontran H (2021), Horizon (1964) and Menschen der Woche (2000). He died on 29 November 2006 in Malaga, Spain.

Tamara Tchinarova Finch was born on 18 July 1919 in Cetatea Alba, Romania. She was married to Peter Finch. She died on 31 August 2017 in Malaga, Spain.

Marifé de Triana was born on 13 September 1936 in Burguillos, Seville, Andalucía, Spain. She was an actress, known for Bajo el cielo andaluz (1960), Canto para ti (1959) and The Days of the Past (1977). She was married to José María Alonso Calvo. She died on 16 January 2013 in Benalmádena, Málaga, Andalucía, Spain.