El Santo wasn't just a luchador but a media juggernaut, superhero, and one the most merchandised men ever. Outside of the ring he fought
zombies,
vampires, Nazis, werewolves, and gangsters all with his superb flair and style. His first adventures outside of the ring began in 1952, with the first issue of his weekly comic book.
Santo was approached by a publisher name
Jose Cruz, who wanted to do a
fumetti style (photographic comic) comic book featuring El Santo. Of course, not El Santo wrestling, but solving crimes and fighting monsters. The comic was a
huge hit. At first it was published weekly, and sold close to 500,000 copies
every week. (Go ahead and look at the figure again. Yow!) Realizing how popular El Santo was becoming, Jose Cruz began printing two issues a week. Printing continued in this manner until the early 1960s, when Cruz began a second series, this time a bit larger and with more hand-drawn covers and backgrounds. (But still using the cut-n-paste style of fumetti) Sadly, the second series started phasing out the actual El Santo and instead used a stand in who was still called "El Santo", but wore a mask with a large "S" on the forehead.
The El Santo comic book continued for two more series using the Santo stand-in, racking up an amazing 35 years of publication. It also helped start the comic book career of
Blue Demon and a whole genre of
luchadore comics. The
real El Santo, by this time, was well into his movie career.
Santo's film career almost started in 1952, when he was offered a role playing a villian in a serial called "The Man in the Silver Mask" but turned down the role because he thought it would fail at the box office. It was with the success of his
comic book series that Santo began to appear in films. He first appeared as an unnamed masked sidekick to police to help solve crimes in "The Evil Brain" and "The Infernal Men". It wasn't until 1961 that Santo was offered a leading role.
Santo was approached by producer
Alberto Lopez to star as himself in the rip-roaring
zombie smackdown "
El Santo Vs. The Zombies". Santo recieved only $1,700 for the role, but after its box office success he was stolen away by producer
Enrique Vergara for the fee of $9,000 per film. Together they began cranking out films, with Santo eventually getting a total of 52 films under his belt. (Most following the El Santo Vs.
The Mummy,
Ninjas, Werewolf, etc.) The masked wrestler craze eventually settled down, and Santo filmed his last movie in 1982 (Fury of the Karate Experts). His last public appearance was January 26th, 1984 on the Mexican television show "Contrapunto" when he publicly unmasked himself. He died a week later from a heart attack.
English Dubbed El Santo Movies:
In the US dubs, Santo is re-dubbed "Samson". (Not to be confused with
Maciste, who was also re-dubbed as Samson in the US.)
Invasion of the Zombies
El Santo Vs. The Vampire Women (Samson Vs. The Vampire Women - In
MST3k episode #624!)
El Santo in the Wax Museum (Samson in the Wax Museum)
El Santo Vs. Dr. Death (Samson Vs. Dr. Death)
That I know of. /msg me if you know of any more. Also, Santo movies have some of the best B-Movie posters ever! Hunt some down, they're readily available.