FOR more than 90 years, the story of Zorro, or El Zorro - which translates from Spanish into “The Fox” - has been written, told, retold, and been made into movies and TV series over and over again.
He has endured better than any other hero, and each generation brings new tales of the man dressed in black, with his cowl mask and Gaucho hat. However, in his first appearance, his mask covered his entire face. His favourite weapon is a rapier which, with three quick cuts, he leaves his distinctive Z mark. His horse was called Tornado.
So where did Zorro begin? He was created in 1919 as a pulp fiction character by Johnston McCulley, a reporter from Ottawa, Illinois, who was born on 3 February 1889.
Let me explain pulp fiction: these were cheap magazines available from 1896 right up to the 1950s. They were generally seven inches wide ten inches long and a half-inch thick, containing 128 pages and were printed on cheap wood pulp paper, hence the name. They were sold at less than half the price of better paper productions called glossies or slicks. McCulley was a writer with over 50 novels to his name - literally hundreds of stories - and numerous screenplays for movies and television. He wrote under different names, creating other characters such as the Crimson Clown and Black Star.
The first publication to feature Zorro was called the Curse of Capistrano in 1919. It appeared as a five-part series in a magazine called All-Story Weekly. It was republished as a full novel in 1924. Based on the original story, the first film, The Mark of Zorro went on general release in 1920, with Douglas Fairbanks playing the hero Don Diego Vega, AKA Señor Zorro.
This film would be remade in 1940 with Tyrone Power in the lead role, and the 1974 version starred Frank Langello.
Fairbanks would star in the 1925 sequel Don Q Son of Zorro, which was not the work of McCulley, but based on a 1909 book by mother and son, Kate and Hesketh Hesketh-Pritchard, which was adapted for the silver screen.
New films and remakes would be produced on a regular basis right up to the present. The latest, a 1998 production of The Mask of Zorro which, like all Zorro movies, featured the best actors of its era, and starred Anthony Hopkins as an aging Zorro, who selected Antonio Banderas and trained him as his successor, while Catherine Zeta Jones as the daughter of Don Rafael Montero, was his arch enemy.
In 1997, an animated series of more than 26 episodes was shown on TV, while ten years later one of the best Zorro productions was aired in America, originally in Spanish, called La Espada y La Rosa. A 100-episode series, simply called Zorro, was produced and shown in the Philippines in 2009.
So to the man on whose actions the Zorro stories are based, William Lamport, was born in 1610 in Wexford town - although the exact date is not known - to a seafaring merchant Catholic family. His father Richard and mother Alonso (Sutton) were of English descent and he had at least one brother, called John. His grandfather Patrick’s ships aided Augila’s Spanish force to land at Kinsale in the 1600s. He was captured and executed on the orders of James I in 1617.
William and John would leave Wexford, to be educated by the Jesuits, first in Dublin, and then England, where William would attend Gresham College and study Greek and Maths. He was arrested in London in 1627 and charged with sedition (a law referring to overt conduct) for distributing Catholic pamphlets. He escaped and joined a pirate ship, which was later involved in the defeat of the British Navy at Rochelle. He left his pirate ways behind and journeyed to Spain, joining the Irish community at La Coruña, where he changed his name to Don Guillen Lombardo. He was granted a scholarship to the Colegio Imperial in Madrid.
He proved a loyal servant to the Spanish and was involved in many battles, leading Irish soldiers at the siege of Fuenterrabia. A pictorial record of his military and diplomatic career still exists. An unfinished portrait by Van Dyck, painted in Brussels in the mid-1630s, hangs in Budapest Museum.
By the age of 25, he was a proficient multi-linguist, speaking 14 languages fluently. He had also travelled throughout most of Europe - it is thought as a spy for the Spanish. His fondness for the fair sex - he had many dangerous affairs with both married and single women - would, however, catch up with him. One particular affair led to him leaving Spain. It involved a young noblewoman, as one story puts it; another states she was a Portuguese converso named Ana De Cana y Leva who became pregnant, leading William to flee either a huge scandal or an unwanted marriage. Whichever, he sailed for Mexico from Cadiz on 21 April 1640.
On arrival, he quickly learned the political differences. He befriended the chief clerk of the Mexico City government, from whom he rented a room. Siding with those who opposed Spanish laws and taxes, he was soon embroiled in a conspiracy to overthrow Viceroy Villena, which was led by Bishop Palafox, despite a claim that he had been sent to Mexico to spy on those involved.
He sent a report to Madrid denouncing the actions of the viceroy, which led to a secret letter to the bishop authorising his takeover, which duly occurred in July 1642. William sought a post in the new regime, but was refused, so he took to the task of aiding the oppressed, particularly miners, while simultaneously drawing up a plan which would seek independence.
In October1642, as he was about to become engaged to noblewoman Antonia Turicious, he was arrested and charged with plotting a rebellion, which had the stated aims of abolishing slavery and creating an independent Mexican state (Mexico was under Spanish rule at this time). One of the documents found in his possession was a declaration of independence, which is stated to be the first such document produced in the New World.
He was arrested on the minor charge of having practised judicial astrology and imprisoned. This led to a power struggle between the king, who wanted him released, and the Mexican Inquisition (the branch of a tribunal of Holy Office set up in Spain in 1478 by Catholic monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella of Castile) who wanted him held in captivity. The latter got their way and the king backed down.
On the night of 25 December 1650, he escaped in a manner so brilliantly conceived and daring that rumours were flying: he had been assisted by demons. During his two days of freedom, he posted pamphlets around the city accusing the Inquisition of being corrupt. He soon attained hero status with the local population.
Recaptured, he spent the next nine years in solitary confinement. This tested his sanity, so he began writing psalms on his bed sheet, his pen being a chicken feather and his ink a concoction of candle smoke collected with honeyed bread and then soaked in water. By the time it was discovered, he had written 917 psalms.
In 1659 he was condemned to death as a heretic and sentenced to be burned at the stake. Legend claims he broke free of his ropes and strangled himself with his iron collar before the sentenced could be carried out.
So where does McCulley’s Zorro fit into this story? There are many explanations: the simplest being that of history professor Fabio Troncarelli, of Viterbo University, La Crosse, Wisconsin. He states there is detailed proof in the closely guarded archives of the Inquisition that the real Zorro was an Irishman from Wexford called William Lamport. He says there are numerous references to Lamport: he led a double life (like the fictional Zorro); he had a thick red beard and flashing eyes; he was quite a womaniser and led a life even more adventurous than anything the screen writers have dreamt up.
He concludes that Lamport’s fame as a popular hero in Central America was still reverberating hundreds of years after his death. He was later described as a hero and has a monument to his honour in Mexico City.