09 El Santo
Rodolfo Guzman Huerta, known as “El Santo” (“The Saint”) was one of the major figures in Mexican cinema of the 1960s and 1970s; before that, he was a well-known professional wrestler, and the leading character in a long-running comic book series. On the 5th of February 1984 El Santo’s life came to an end, but his legend lives on through his films, and through the continuing career of one of his sons, who wrestles as “El Hijo del Santo.”
El Santo was already well into his forties when he became a film star. After making two early films in Cuba, Guzman returned to the ring for a time. At some point he had decided to make the switch from “rudo” (a bad-guy wrestler, known more for brute strength, as opposed to the ”tecnicos”), in keeping with the heroic role he was playing in the ”Santo” historietas graficas (comic books). This decision undoubtedly was a key factor in his film stardom.
El Santo continued to wrestle professionally during the next two decades, alternating film appearances and ring appearances (with a certain amount of overlap: Santo’s wrestling bouts were frequently photographed and included in his feature films). As the 1970s wound down, however, the popularity of lucha libre films declined drastically. El Santo managed to hang on longer than his competitors–principally Mil Mascaras and Blue Demon–but the genre was virtually dead after 1977. After two lackluster films for Rafael Perez Grovas (and a cameo appearance in another), Santo made only two more films, EL PUNO DE LA MUERTE y LA FURIA DE LAS KARATECAS. These films would seem to contradict the rumors that ”El Santo” was occasionally impersonated on screen by other men: if, at 65 years old, El Santo was still capable of baring his chest and participating in various action sequences (albeit rather restrained ones), one could not imagine him having previously agreed to being doubled (except perhaps for extremely elaborate stunts). Nonetheless, El Santo in these films at last began to show definite signs of slowing down due to age and physical weariness.
On 12 September 1982, El Santo participated in his last professional wrestling bout, and officially retired from the ring. As he had done in the prologue of CHANOC Y EL HIJO DEL SANTO CONTRA LOS VAMPIROS ASESINOS, El Santo relinquished his place to one of his real-life sons, who initiated a professional wrestling career as “El Hijo del Santo” (Rodolfo Guzman Huerta was married twice: he and his first wife had 10 children in 40 years of marriage; after her death, Guzman remarried and fathered another child, late in life).
Although “retired” from the ring and the screen, El Santo continued to make public appearances in his silver mask, even making a start on a third career, as an escape artist! In January 1984, he agreed to participate in a series of six television programs in the series “Contrapunto.” The shows, entitled “Lucha Libre: Circo, Maroma, Teatro o Deporte” (Wrestling: Circus, Acrobatics, Theatre or Sport?), also featured other well-known wrestlers, including Blue Demon. On the final program, 26 January 1984, El Santo shocked the other panelists and the viewing audience by–without previous warning–almost completely removing his mask! The battered, aged face of Rodolfo Guzman Huerta, El Santo, was revealed to the world after forty years of secrecy.
Less than two weeks later, on 5 February 1984, El Santo was performing at the variety theater “Teatro Blanquita.” He appeared in a sketch with comedian Alfredo “Pelon” Solares. The skit featured Solares as the night watchman in a mental hospital, beset by the eccentric inmates. The first show went well, but after the second show El Santo began to complain of pain in his arm and chest. He was taken to a hospital. Shortly thereafter, word came back to the theatre to cancel the third show: at 9:40 pm, El Santo had died of a heart attack.
Jose Buil, several years later, made LA LEYENDA DE UNA MASCARA (The Legend of a Mask), an affectionate look at a very Santo-like character, the Masked Angel. One sequence in this film depicts the funeral of the leading character, attended by his masked wrestling counterparts and a large crowd of admirers. And so it was with the actual funeral of El Santo. Fans filed past the body of El Santo–lying in state at the Sullivan funeral home, wearing the mask that he made famous–as his companions (Huracan Ramirez, Wolf Ruvinskys, Mil Mascaras, Blue Demon, Enrique Llanes and Ray Mendoza, among others) stood watch. It was difficult for the pallbearers to carry the coffin through the crowd to the hearse, and the hearse itself was barely able to make its way to the cemetary where El Santo would be laid to rest. It took more than an hour for the coffin to be carried into the masoleum, as fans of El Santo cheered and applauded their idol. Finally, as his family (including the masked El Hijo del Santo) looked on, the coffin was placed in its niche, and the nameplate affixed: “Rodolfo Guzman Huerta–El Santo.”
[Much of the information for this article came from a videotaped collection of TV news shows broadcast around the time of El Santo's death, compiled by Mexican film scholar Pepe Navar, and supplied by Rogelio Agrasanchez Jr.]
