Zorro, The Gay Blade Zorro, The Gay Blade Zorro, The Gay Blade is a 1981 swashbuckling comedy film from 20th Century Fox, produced by C.O. Erickson and George Hamilton, directed by Peter Medak, that stars Hamilton, Lauren Hutton, Ron Leibman, and Brenda Vaccaro. Via its dedication to director Rouben Mamoulian and opening prologue, the film establishes that it is a sequel to 20th Century Fox's swashbuckling adventure film "The Mark of Zorro" (1940). Hamilton was nominated for a Golden Globe award for playing the dual role of Don Diego de la Vega (Zorro) and his gay twin brother Bunny Wigglesworth, né Ramón de la
Zorro while also pretending to be a coward and a fop. 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. "The Curse of Capistrano" eventually sold more than 50 million copies, becoming one of the most sold