Franco's 80s actors: ÁNGEL ORDIALES

You’ve seen that full scraggly beard, sharp nose, long dark hair and receding hairline in several Jess Franco films from the director’s period of association with Antonio Mayans. A stills photographer and assistant to DP Juan Soler Cózar, Ángel Ordiales was, like Soler Cózar himself, willing to perform on both sides of the camera: it figures that both men were cast as filmmakers in Oasis of the Zombies (1981). Ordiales’s other roles include one of two rapists in Las orgías inconfesables de Emmanuelle (1982), the randy gardener in the ridiculous El hotel de los ligues (1983), a dying man in Sangre en mis zapatos (1983), Perico “El Bosé” the beggar in El siniestro Dr. Orloff (1984) and “Beardo” the fisherman in El lago de las vírgenes (1987). According to Antonio Mayans, Ordiales “went on to become a dentist and died at a very young age”.

(Mayans’s statement is taken from the interview with the actor conducted by Ferrán Herranz and Francesco Cesari and published in the 2010 symposium book Il caso Jesús Franco, coordinated by Cesari).



Text by Nzoog Wahrlfhehen