Remembering Zorro by Ann Morris
When I was a little girl in the 1950s, there were two masked men on television, the Lone Ranger and Zorro.
The Lone Ranger had a good horse, honor, and silver bullets.
Zorro had a good horse, honor, and a flashing sword.
I liked the Lone Ranger but I was in love with Zorro.
The role of Zorro has been played by many actors but for me the real Zorro will always be Guy Williams, who played the dashing, romantic hero in the Disney TV series.
In the picture above, Mr. Williams (on the left) is seen fencing with Buddy Van Horn who was his stunt man on the "Zorro" series.. Mr. Van Horn later was the director of some of Clint Eastwood's movies.
Steven Catalano, Mr. Williams' son and founder of ZORRO FX, a company that specializes in computer generated images for movies, TV, and the Internet, kindly gave his permission for me to share this picture with TFA MAGAZINE readers. You can find this photo as well as many others that pay tribute to Mr. Williams (whose real name was Armand Catalano) at Steven's site. ,
Steven himself was a fencer (foil & sabre), though he modestly says he was not very good at it. He did enjoy showing off a few tricks his dad taught him in his fencing classes and using an Italian sword, the like of which few of the other fencers had ever seen.
No doubt, many veteran fencers who saw "Zorro" during its first TV run and those younger fencers who've only seen it on the Disney Channel in reruns admire the flair with which Zorro wielded his sword. Kids everywhere, including me, learned to slash a "Z" with a toy sword, a stick, or just a pointed finger. All of us wanted to do what that handsome masked man did. I, for one, never expected to have a real sword in my hand but life has it's surprises and at age 46, I found myself with sword in hand. I do need sone work on that "Z" though.
On July 17, the new movie, "The Mask of Zorro" is scheduled to open. I'll be seeing Anthony Hopkins as Don Diego de la Vega and Antonio Banderas as his protege but I'll be remembering Guy Williams was the "real" Zorro.
The best place to get up to date information on the new Zorro movie is at Dark Horizons (News). You'll have to do a little navigating once you get there but it's worth the trip.
For more information on the Zorro character, go to the Official Zorro WebSite.