45 Facts About Zorro

Zorro is a fictional character created in 1919 by American pulp writer Johnston McCulley, appearing in works set in the Pueblo of Los Angeles in Alta California.

Zorro is typically portrayed as a dashing masked vigilante who defends the commoners and indigenous peoples of California against corrupt and tyrannical officials and other villains.

Zorro is an acrobat and an expert in various weapons, but the one he employs most frequently is his rapier, which he uses often to carve the initial "Z" on his defeated foes, and other objects to "sign his work".

Zorro is an accomplished rider, his trusty steed being a black horse called Tornado.

Zorro is the secret identity of Don Diego de la Vega, a young man who is the only son of Don Alejandro de la Vega, the richest landowner in California, while Diego's mother is dead.

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Zorro made his debut in the 1919 novel The Curse of Capistrano, originally meant as a stand-alone story.

However, the success of the 1920 film adaptation The Mark of Zorro starring Douglas Fairbanks convinced McCulley to write more Zorro stories for about four decades: the character was featured in a total of five serialized stories and 57 short stories, the last one appearing in print posthumously in 1959, the year after his death.

However, Fairbanks's sequel, Don Q, Son of Zorro, was more based on the 1919 novel Don Q's Love Story by the mother–son duo Kate Prichard and Hesketh Hesketh-Prichard, than The Further Adventures.

At first, production of new Zorro stories proceeded at irregular intervals: the third novel, Zorro Rides Again was published in 1931, nine years after the second one.

Zorro stories were published much more frequently between 1944 and 1951, a period in which McCulley published 52 short stories with the character for the West Magazine.

The last, "The Mask of Zorro", was published posthumously in Short Stories for Men in 1959.

Over 40 Zorro titled films were made over the years, including The Mark of Zorro, the 1940 classic starring Tyrone Power.

Zorro appears in several stories written by other authors, comics books and strips, stage productions, video games and other media.

McCulley died in 1958, just as Zorro was at the height of his popularity thanks to the Disney series.

Some media adaptations of Zorro's story have placed him during the later era of Mexican California .

Zorro's mask has occasionally been shown as being a rounded domino mask, which he wore without wearing a bandana.

Zorro's favored weapon is a rapier, which he uses to often leave his distinctive mark, a Z cut with three quick strokes, on his defeated foes and other objects to "sign his work".

Zorro uses other weapons, including a bullwhip and a pistol.

Zorro's heroic pose consists of rearing on his horse, Tornado, often saluting with his hand or raising his sword high.

Zorro is very intelligent and can not only use a complex strategy, prepared before entering the battlefield, but improvise plans in the moment of danger and combat.

Zorro never uses brute force and, indeed, more often than not he uses humor and psychological teasing to irritate his opponents, causing them to lose their emotional detachment and become too eager for revenge to be able to coordinate in action and in combat.

Zorro's calculating and precise ability as a tactician allowed him to use weapons as an extension of his skillful hand.

Zorro is a weapons expert and a master of escape and camouflage.

Zorro is good at deciphering numerous languages, both spoken and written.

Zorro is an agile athlete and acrobat, using his bullwhip as a gymnastic accoutrement to swing through gaps between city roofs, and is very capable of landing from great heights and taking a fall.

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Zorro's calculating and precise dexterity as a tactician has enabled Zorro to use two key weapons, his sword and bullwhip, as an extension of his deft hand.

Zorro uses seduction as Zorro and coyness as Don Diego de la Vega, tricking his opponents to obstruct easy access to his true identity by using deception as masterful skill.

In some versions, Zorro keeps a medium-sized dagger tucked in his left boot for emergencies.

Zorro has used his cape as a blind, a trip-mat and a disarming tool.

Zorro's boots are sometimes weighted, as is his hat, which he has thrown, Frisbee-style, as an efficiently substantial warning to enemies.

In most versions, Zorro keeps Tornado in a secret cave, connected to his with a system of secret passages and tunnels.

McCulley's concept of a band of men helping Zorro is often absent from other versions of the character.

Zorro is a capable and invaluable helper for Zorro, sometimes wearing the mask to reinforce his master's charade.

Zorro is shown to speak to Tornado in a spirit quest and later to a fellow native girl, Light-in-the-Night, whom he marries.

Zorro seldom wore his blade, except as a matter of style and apparel.

Zorro was damnably polite to all women and paid court to none.

Zorro's facade is pretending to be interested in only these things and to have no interest in swordplay or action.

Zorro has a well-equipped laboratory in his hidden cave in this version of the story.

Zorro's life was the subject of a fictive book by Vicente Riva Palacio; The Irish Zorro is a recent biography.

Fairbanks's costume in The Mark of Zorro, released the following year, resembled that of the Rider with only slight differences in the mask and hat.

Zorro has appeared in many different comic book series over the decades.

Zorro appears in the 2013 Dynamite eight-issue limited series Masks alongside the Green Hornet and Kato, The Shadow, and The Spider.

Zorro inspired a similar pulp character known as El Coyote, which was created in 1943 by Jose Mallorqui.

The presentation focused on the great Zorro actors including Douglas Fairbanks, Tyrone Power, Guy Williams, and Duncan Regehr.

Cave that was used as a filming location in various Zorro productions is known as "Zorro's Cave" and remains in place, now hidden behind a condominium complex, on land that was once the Iverson Movie Ranch in Chatsworth, Calif.

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