PULP-FICTION HERO GREATLY ADMIRED, IMITATED.

Byline: Yvette Cabrera Daily News Staff Writer

His sword may not be as flashy as the lethal weapons of today's action heroes, but when it comes to capturing Americans' hearts, Zorro's appeal is just as deadly.

Almost 80 years after emerging from the pages of a pulp-fiction magazine, Zorro has been reincarnated once again in a major motion picture, which debuts this week, and he is expected to endear yet another generation of admirers to the legend of the masked avenger.

From the silent-movie era to the golden age of Hollywood to today's age of animation, the story of the swashbuckling hero is one that Americans and the world have come to know and love.

The story resonates with audiences worldwide, said Luis Reyes, a historian/archivist and author of ``Hispanics in Hollywood,'' a film and television encyclopedia.

``This is a man who upholds justice, who uphold freedoms,'' said Reyes. ``It's the American ideals, but it's also world ideals - someone who comes to rescue you from the most dire straits. In Japan, he could be a samurai.''

Among the great pantheon of heroes, Zorro seems to stand out, said John Gertz, president of the Berkeley-based Zorro Productions, Inc., a multifaceted entertainment production company centered on Zorro.

``Zorro was really the first of his genre of heroes. So many of the other heroes were explicitly or subtly designed over him,'' said Gertz.

Unlike today's martial-arts-kicking, nuclear bomb-blasting heroes, Zorro is not the barbarian who chops off the villain's head. Instead, he makes fun of the villain and has a good time, said Gertz.

``He represents a sense of nobility that is often lacking in this world,'' said Gertz. ``It's a story that goes back to the perennial theme of justice and the uplifting of the downtrodden.''

In 1919, the dashing Zorro debuted on the pulp-fiction pages of ``The Curse of Capistrano.'' He was the creation of newspaperman and author Johnston McCulley, who unwittingly created what was to become an ``intergenerational cross-cultural icon,'' according to Sandra Curtis, author of ``Zorro Unmasked: The Official History,'' released this month.

McCulley's Zorro was a masked avenger who embodied romanticism, righteousness and passion. He was a ``friend of the oppressed,'' who punished none except brutes who mistreated natives,'' wrote Curtis.

In no time, Zorro became one of the best-known characters of popular fiction, according Reyes.

The story is based on exploits of Don Diego de la Vega, the seemingly lazy and spoiled son of Spanish aristocrats in California, circa 1820. Though at first Don Diego is a defender of the land-owning hacendados, he later comes to champion the causes of the underprivileged peasants through his alter ego, Zorro (Spanish for fox).

Swashbuckling role

In 1920, silent-film star Douglas Fairbanks Sr. took McCulley's vision and made it into ``the mega-hit of its time'' with the first Zorro major motion picture, ``The Mark of Zorro,'' according to Curtis, who is also creative director for Zorro Productions.

``The movie took what might have been a forgotten pulp-fiction story and transformed it into a huge success,'' said Curtis. ``It completely changed Douglas Fairbanks' career and it certainly blew the lid off of the Zorro phenomenon.''

With TriStar Pictures' current release, ``The Mask of Zorro,'' starring Antonio Banderas, 15 major-film-company Zorro films have been made in the United States, including the popular remake of the ``The Mark of Zorro'' that starred Tyrone Power.

Not to mention the more than three dozen films made abroad.

In the late 1950s, Zorro hit the small screen in Walt Disney Studios' ``Zorro,'' starring Guy Williams, who is still remembered worldwide for the role.

``The series sparked a craze for Zorro merchandise across the country,'' said Gertz, whose father had bought the rights to Zorro from McCulley and then turned around and sold them to Walt Disney.

From Zorro lunch boxes to roller skates, children had more than 100 pieces of merchandise to pick from, including Zorro chalk-tip swords that became one of the top toys of 1957, said Gertz.

The craze resulted in a feature article in an issue of Life magazine that year. ``In every picture, kids were chalking Z's everywhere,'' said Gertz. ``Talk to any baby boomer and they probably had a chalk-tip sword and ran around the neighborhood marking up sidewalks.''

The craze eventually settled down, but in the 1970s television remakes brought Zorro back to life, including the 1974 ``The Mark of Zorro,'' starring Frank Langella and Ricardo Montalban.

Zorro would make yet another comeback in a 1980s animated television series, including ``The New Adventures of Zorro,'' which debuted in 1981.

The superheroes of later generations were also influenced by Zorro. Batman creator Bob Kane speaks openly of how Zorro inspired his creation of Bruce Wayne, who like Zorro had a do-gooder alter ego.

Even cartoons have been influenced by Zorro, according to Gertz, who was amazed at the file his office compiled of cartoons with characters based on Zorro - from Garfield to Broom Hilda and from Mad magazine to the New Yorker.

``When I looked at this file, it suddenly struck me that Zorro was such a part of American culture,'' said Gertz. ``You can't grow up in America and not know that Zorro goes zip, zip, zip.''

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Photo

Photo: The Disney series ``Zorro,'' which starred Guy Williams, created a toy-sword craze in the late 1950s when the television show aired.