His portrayals of numerous classic horror figures—The Wolfman, Frankenstein's monster, Count Dracula, Quasimodo, Fu Manchu and a mummy—earned him recognition as the Spanish Lon Chaney.

His father Enrique Molina was a successful furrier, and Naschy grew up in very comfortable surroundings, at one point living in his parents' country mansion.

At times, he tried his hand at designing record album covers, writing pulp western novels and drawing comic book stories, but did not meet with much success.

In his 20s, Naschy moved back and forth between professional weightlifting and acting, but wasn't able to secure important roles, usually obtaining just bit parts.

Naschy allegedly acted as an assistant director on two other films, Aventura en el Palacio Viejo (1967) and Cronica de Nueve Meses (1967)[5] While appearing as an extra in an episode of the American TV show I Spy that was being filmed in a remote country site in Spain in 1966, Naschy met horror icon Boris Karloff on the set, a thrill he never forgot.

Naschy never intended to play "El Hombre Lobo" (as the doomed lycanthrope came to be called in Spain), he just wound up with the part when the producer could not find a suitable actor (they had tried to hire Lon Chaney Jr., but at age 62, the fabled Hollywood horror star was far too sickly to travel).

The German distributors insisted he change his name from Jacinto Molina because it sounded too Spanish, which would have hurt the film's chances at the box offices in various countries outside of Spain.

Naschy later wrote and starred in 11 sequels featuring his Waldemar Daninsky werewolf character, and spun off a very successful acting and screenwriting career in the process.

Naschy had three partners in the company...Augusto Boue (who dumped his shares in the business the moment things got bad), Masurao Takeda (who died soon after the bankruptcy from pancreatic cancer) and Julia Saly (who retired from acting completely after Mantis flopped).

[6] The unexpected sudden loss of his father (with whom he had always been very close), coinciding with the bankruptcy of his film company, plunged Naschy into a two-year period of depression.

Naschy's son Sergio played a major role in the film, along with famed horror icons Howard Vernon and Caroline Munro.

But he was still doing poorly financially, and complained bitterly in interviews about the state of the corrupt Spanish film industry which he said practiced favoritism and cronyism.

During his sojourn in Hollywood, Naschy even visited Universal Studios as well as the famed "Ackermansion" museum of Forrest J Ackerman, the editor of the legendary magazine Famous Monsters of Filmland.

[8] Although his life ended in relatively poor financial straits, Naschy always received a tremendous outpouring of love from his many fans at the conventions he attended and died knowing he would always be regarded as a major horror film icon.

[7] A hardcover book entitled Muchas Gracias, Señor Lobo[9] was published in Germany after Naschy's death, collecting hundreds of rare photos, lobby cards, posters, etc.

Despite the numerous plot inconsistencies and convoluted flashbacks, however, Naschy's Wolf Man series as a whole is still considered his most famous work by most of his many fans.