He forged himself as a bullfighter, glimpsing success at Las Ventas, which alternated with some very hard beginnings marked by economic hardship and a goring in the leg that almost crippled him.
He received it from maestro Gregorio Sánchez on 19 May 1962 with Mondeño (Juan García Jiménez) standing as witness, and with bulls supplied by Benítez Cubero.
Among his personal friends were Orson Welles and fellow bullfighter Antonio Ordóñez Araujo, who was his neighbour on the Calle Serrano in Madrid.
[4][5] Vázquez himself took part in José María Forqué's film Yo he visto a la muerte ("I Have Seen Death"; 1967), which starred Luis Miguel Dominguín and Antonio Bienvenida, and in which, besides playing himself, "El Nono", as he was known from the capeas, he also appeared indulging in his other great passion: Flamenco.
Vázquez again went out through the bullring's Great Gate in 1970, three times, a merit that he shares with Paquirri (1969), Luguillano, and Carnicerito de Úbeda (1967).
Besides his media verónica, he bore a powerful left, a tempered right, and an orthodox sword, techniques of a now vanished breed of bullfighter, but which in essence Vázquez still embodies.
[13] In 2012, Vázquez celebrated his eightieth birthday with a bullfight at the Zamora bullring, where he fought a yearling bull from the Victorino ranch, cutting both his ears and his tail off as trophies, and thus also becoming the first octogenarian to accomplish this feat.