Paco Manoja, the 'Influencer' from Torremolinos Who Bathed Naked with Brigitte Bardot

Brigitte Bardot ended up that night on the beach, flouting the vagrancy law with stealth and audacity: drunk and swimming in the sea completely naked. She was not alone; she was with Paco Manoja, the living memory of that Torremolinos. "She came to have dinner at the bar, we danced, and we ended up in the sea without clothes," recounts the artist and businessman with a mischievous smile. His story is much like the wild parties of Ava Gardner, whose fleeting lovers would rush to tell about it afterward. But at this point, our narrator falls silent. But it's already past the statute of limitations, I reply. His grin widens, and he prolongs the dramatic pause, but reveals no more, perhaps because that night he lost all his clothes. And like a skilled bullfighter, he changes the subject, bringing up Ava, whom he encountered one night trying to make her way home after a party at El Dorado. "She couldn't even remember where she was staying, but I knew she was at the Finca La Verdad of the journalist Jorge Fiestas, so I found her a taxi and sent her home," he concludes politely, the man who never missed a party.

Owner of the Central Bar, "the chicest place in Torremolinos," as dubbed by Costa del Sol chronicler Paco Lancha, Manoja is still alert and opens his home, his albums, and his privileged memory to us, which, at 94 years old, works like clockwork. The architects of this meeting are another historic figure from San Miguel street, Remi Fernández Campoy, owner of the legendary record store Misol, and the playwright Carlos Zamarriego. The four of us settle under a large painting signed by the protagonist himself, capturing a Venetian landscape filled with hot air balloons. A perfect metaphor for this 20th-century 'influencer' who has soared through a thousand and one nights with his multiple activities as a hotelier, fashion entrepreneur, painter, antiquarian, and artist of life. To his merits, we must add an intangible like charisma, which soon appears in his delightful conversation sprinkled with actors, singers, and celebrities who passed by his bar and with whom he ended up sharing dinners, drinks, and confidences.

His memories are starred by Hollywood celebrities like Elizabeth Taylor, Eddie Fisher, Melvyn Douglas, Peter Lorre, Diana Dors, and a couple of foreigners who made their fortune on Sunset Boulevard and ended up taking refuge in Malaga, the Hungarian Paul Lukas and the Russian Mischa Auer. Also, the pioneer April Ashley, the first trans woman; the drag queen Danny La Rue; the pianist Pia Beck; and aristocrats like the abdicated King of England Edward VIII for the love of Wallis Simpson at the "most boring party" he remembers. And, of course, fellow countrymen: Imperio Argentina, Paquita Rico, Antonio El Bailarín, and the couple formed by the flamenco dancer Lola Medina and the aviator Américo. With the latter, things did not end well due to that bath with B.B. His people skills are evident, although Paco attributes another merit to himself in that Malaga of the 50s and 60s that was waking up to tourism: "I was one of the few who spoke English back then."

That was the reason why he ended up playing banderillero for the American singer Eddie Fisher. Well, that and some horns. "The hotel owner where he was staying called me to take him to the bulls and explain everything, but halfway through the bullfight he said, 'Let's have some martinis.' And we ended up on Larios street having drinks," he recounts amusedly, the man who shared toasts with the most sought-after celebrity by the paparazzi at that time, after the controversial artist left his wife, actress Debbie Reynolds, for his best friend, star Liz Taylor. And to put distance between them and that high-profile infidelity, both left the charged atmosphere of Hollywood for the clear horizons of Torremolinos. "Eddie came here with Elizabeth who was filming 'Scent of Mystery,' the first smell-o-vision movie that was a complete flop," Manoja tells about his thwarted bullfighting afternoon with Fisher, who, following his wife's example, also traded the bullfighter's cape for scents. Well, for the sherries.

Flipping through the photo album, it doesn't take long for the legendary footballer Bobby Moore to appear, captain of the England football team that won the World Cup in 1966. And the photo published by SUR of the cocktail party Manoja organized in Torremolinos in honor of the football star, attended by the president of Club Deportivo Malaga, Juan Moreno de Luna, and the Manchester coach, Malcolm Allison. "Bobby used to come to my house and I to his when I went to London," he clarifies the closeness between them, also evidenced by the next photo in which the footballer gifts the Malagueño his British team jersey with the '6' on the back and the clipping from the English newspaper 'Daily Express' that reported Moore had promised Manoja that if he won the World Cup, he would give him his iconic kit. "I sold it for 3,000 pounds," he suddenly boasts, showing off his entrepreneurial spirit. A true character.

"Do you know what's worth a lot of money?" he asks, while turning the page and pulling out a heavy paper document featuring a dozen signatures with affectionate messages to "friend" Paco, the "Spanish fly." "This is the menu from the commemorative dinner of England in the World Cup and I have it signed by all the players," he shows proudly his treasure, the Malagueño, as if he had just scored a goal. "This is worth gold because they haven't won another championship," he concludes with the exclusive card from the feast at the Hilton in London.

Manoja not only speaks English fluently, but his Torremolinos accent has an Anglo-Saxon twang, leaning towards American. From the time he lived six months overlooking the coast of Malaga and another six at Satellite Beach (Florida) in the 80s and 90s. And that's why he says "penthouse" to refer to a friend's apartment where he stays since he lost his own apartment in a fall. He broke his hip and while in the hospital, they detected a heart problem and also fitted him with a pacemaker. "I didn't have insurance in the US, so it was a ruin. I had to sell the house. The doctors took it," he recounts with some resignation, although he has not lost his American connection. "My friend stays here when he comes and I go to his 'penthouse,'" relates Paco Manoja, who was exchanging houses before vacation rental websites made it fashionable.

All this he tells us sitting on his sofa, very close to a frame with another actor's signed photo. It also has the presidential seal of the White House and reads "Ronald Reagan." "Through the secretary of his wife, Nancy, I learned that the US president had a horse museum, and when I found a bronze of a Spanish horse saddle in an antique shop, I bought it and gave it to him. And in return, he sent me two dedicated photos," shows proudly Paco Manoja, whose house is also a museum. Not just for the photos, memories, and his exotic collection of carved Chinese, Indian, and Persian figures. On his walls, there's everything from an exclusive small painting by the 19th-century English landscapist George Turner to his own oil paintings in which he also practices views. From that aerial Venice to his particular view of San Miguel street in Torremolinos when it was the central road of a Malaga neighborhood dotted with low houses.

In the album appears a catalog from the Bodley Gallery in New York from 1961. It was the 'Paintings of Andalusia' exhibition and the author was none other than Paco Manoja. "Here, four years earlier, a certain Andy Warhol exhibited," he points out as if scoring another goal, the now painter. Indeed, the artist who revolutionized pop art showcased his first solo shows in this Manhattan gallery, which the same year that announced the Malagueño also hosted an exhibition by Max Ernst, and the previous year, by Roberto Matta. It sounds like it's all a goal. "Paco's first exhibition was alongside Palmira Abelló at the Central Bar and it was magnificent," recalls Remi Fernández Campoy, who can't resist the note that also rescues the famous painter and friend.

Back at the bar, Manoja comes across a seventies photo of some tourists on the terrace of his place that illustrated the Sunday supplement of 'ABC' in 1972. "The Central was the meeting point for everyone," asserts the businessman, trotting out another perfectly pronounced Anglicism, reminding Remi that Paco was also a fashion pioneer on San Miguel street. "I set up a boutique, specializing in leather goods, and since in Franco's times foreign names couldn't be used for stores, I named it Oscar because the actor Paul Lukas gave me his Hollywood statuette and I displayed it in the store," narrates the entrepreneur, who showcased in the window the legendary award that the Hungarian snatched from none other than Humphrey Bogart of 'Casablanca' for the now-forgotten film 'Watch on the Rhine' (1943), which denounced Nazism.

Manoja won the Oscar through friendship and loyalty to Lukas, though he lost it in a high-speed accident. "They crashed a car into the store and took all the leather goods, but what hurt me the most was that they stole the award," recounts the merchant, who when he turned 50 managed the Central bar in Plaza Andalucía, but also the restaurant La Mañana, three "boutiques" –one in Marbella and the ones in Torremolinos, Adam, and Oscar–, a hair salon, a travel agency, and a farm in Cártama. His business acumen precedes him. A gift that also led him to Brigitte Bardot, a story we insist on revisiting.

"She came looking for me because her sister, who had been through Torremolinos, gave her my address. She arrived and asked for a bottle of real whisky, because back then here there was only Dyc and it upset her stomach," reveals Paco Manoja, while Remi and Carlos burst into laughter imagining the scene. The innkeeper bought bottles of smuggled scotch from the stewardesses who brought British tourists to Gibraltar, but they left there with more 'Scots' than they had entered. This happened during the filming of B.B.'s 'The Night Heaven Fell' on the Costa del Sol and, bottle after bottle, it ended up on the beach under the same light as the movie's title.

"We became good friends," he affirms in another bullfighter's pass. Then he points to the album and says he has no photos left of Bardot because one day his friend Américo, in a fit of jealousy, threw all his snapshots with the star of 'And God Created Woman' into the fireplace. "I didn't keep any, but I never served him a coffee at the bar again," he still says angrily. Was there then a romance? And as if we had already had a few of the whiskies he kept under the bar, this time he answers. "There was no issue because we were both too drunk," he responds, recovering his mischievous smile, while looking out the window of his apartment overlooking Bajondillo. To that same sand where seventy years ago he bathed naked and accompanied. Without consequences, but also without being stopped by the police.