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Jesús Franco
Jesús Franco Manera (12 May 1930 – 2 April 2013), also commonly known as Jess Franco, was a Spanish filmmaker, composer, and actor, known as a highly prolific director of low-budget exploitation and B-movies. He worked in many different genres during his career, but was best known for his horror and erotic films, often incorporating surrealist elements.
In a career spanning from 1954 to 2013, he wrote, directed, produced, acted in, and scored approximately 173 feature films, working both in his native Spain and (during the rule of Francisco Franco) in France, West Germany, Switzerland and Portugal. Additionally, during the 1960s, he made several films in Rio de Janeiro and Istanbul.
Franco's films are known for distinctive visual style and idiosyncratic approach to filmmaking, often directing multiple films concurrently. Despite mixed critical reception during his lifetime, Franco's work has gained a dedicated cult following, and he is regarded as a significant figure in the history of exploitation cinema. In 2009, he received an Honorary Goya Award from the Academy of Cinematographic Arts and Sciences of Spain for his contributions to Spanish cinema.
Jesús Franco Manera was born in Madrid on 12 May 1930, to a prominent family of Cuban and Mexican origin. His brother, Enrique Franco, was the vice president of the Albéniz Foundation. Via his sister Dolores, Franco was the brother-in-law of philosopher Julián Marías, and the uncle of filmmaker Ricardo Franco.
A lifelong jazz enthusiast and pianist, Franco studied music at the Madrid Royal Conservatory and the Instituto Ramiro de Maeztu, before embarking on a film career. He studied at Madrid's Instituto de Investigaciones y Experiencias Cinematográficas, and the Institut des hautes études cinématographiques in Paris. He cited among his influences Luis Buñuel, Stanley Donen, Vincente Minnelli, and Orson Welles.
During this time, he supported himself by working as a pianist in nightclubs and writing pulp novels under the pen name 'David Khune', which he later adopted as one of his directing aliases. He also directed stage plays.
Franco began his career in 1954 (aged 24) as an assistant director in the Spanish film industry, performing many tasks including composing music for some films as well as co-writing a number of the screenplays. He assisted directors such as Joaquín Luis Romero Marchent, León Klimovsky and Juan Antonio Bardem. After working on more than 20 films for other directors, he decided to get into directing films himself in 1959, making a few musicals and a crime drama called Red Lips.
In 1960, Franco took Marius Lesoeur and Sergio Newman, two producer friends, to a cinema to see the newly released Hammer horror film The Brides of Dracula and the three men decided to go into the horror film business. His career took off in 1962 with The Awful Dr. Orloff (a.k.a. Gritos en la noche), which received wide distribution in the USA and the United Kingdom. Franco wrote and directed Orloff, and even supplied some of the music for the film. In the mid-1960s, he went on to direct two other horror films, then proceeded to turn out a number of James Bond-like spy thrillers and softcore sex films based on the works of the Marquis de Sade (which remained one of his major influences throughout his career).
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Jesús Franco
Jesús Franco Manera (12 May 1930 – 2 April 2013), also commonly known as Jess Franco, was a Spanish filmmaker, composer, and actor, known as a highly prolific director of low-budget exploitation and B-movies. He worked in many different genres during his career, but was best known for his horror and erotic films, often incorporating surrealist elements.
In a career spanning from 1954 to 2013, he wrote, directed, produced, acted in, and scored approximately 173 feature films, working both in his native Spain and (during the rule of Francisco Franco) in France, West Germany, Switzerland and Portugal. Additionally, during the 1960s, he made several films in Rio de Janeiro and Istanbul.
Franco's films are known for distinctive visual style and idiosyncratic approach to filmmaking, often directing multiple films concurrently. Despite mixed critical reception during his lifetime, Franco's work has gained a dedicated cult following, and he is regarded as a significant figure in the history of exploitation cinema. In 2009, he received an Honorary Goya Award from the Academy of Cinematographic Arts and Sciences of Spain for his contributions to Spanish cinema.
Jesús Franco Manera was born in Madrid on 12 May 1930, to a prominent family of Cuban and Mexican origin. His brother, Enrique Franco, was the vice president of the Albéniz Foundation. Via his sister Dolores, Franco was the brother-in-law of philosopher Julián Marías, and the uncle of filmmaker Ricardo Franco.
A lifelong jazz enthusiast and pianist, Franco studied music at the Madrid Royal Conservatory and the Instituto Ramiro de Maeztu, before embarking on a film career. He studied at Madrid's Instituto de Investigaciones y Experiencias Cinematográficas, and the Institut des hautes études cinématographiques in Paris. He cited among his influences Luis Buñuel, Stanley Donen, Vincente Minnelli, and Orson Welles.
During this time, he supported himself by working as a pianist in nightclubs and writing pulp novels under the pen name 'David Khune', which he later adopted as one of his directing aliases. He also directed stage plays.
Franco began his career in 1954 (aged 24) as an assistant director in the Spanish film industry, performing many tasks including composing music for some films as well as co-writing a number of the screenplays. He assisted directors such as Joaquín Luis Romero Marchent, León Klimovsky and Juan Antonio Bardem. After working on more than 20 films for other directors, he decided to get into directing films himself in 1959, making a few musicals and a crime drama called Red Lips.
In 1960, Franco took Marius Lesoeur and Sergio Newman, two producer friends, to a cinema to see the newly released Hammer horror film The Brides of Dracula and the three men decided to go into the horror film business. His career took off in 1962 with The Awful Dr. Orloff (a.k.a. Gritos en la noche), which received wide distribution in the USA and the United Kingdom. Franco wrote and directed Orloff, and even supplied some of the music for the film. In the mid-1960s, he went on to direct two other horror films, then proceeded to turn out a number of James Bond-like spy thrillers and softcore sex films based on the works of the Marquis de Sade (which remained one of his major influences throughout his career).