René Cardona Jr. was a Mexican

Mexico

The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...

 filmmaker and actor

Actor

An actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...

, son of well-known Mexican director René Cardona, and the father of Rene Cardona III (also an actor/director).

Biography

Cardona Jr. began by acting in his father's films and then took over his father's craft in the mid-60s, directing, writing, and producing over a hundred films over the years. He enjoyed some notoriety and success particularly in the late 1970s as a result of his Jaws

Jaws (film)

Jaws is a 1975 American horror-thriller film directed by Steven Spielberg and based on Peter Benchley's novel of the same name. In the story, the police chief of Amity Island, a fictional summer resort town, tries to protect beachgoers from a giant man-eating great white shark by closing the beach,...

(1975) inspired film Tintorera

Tintorera

Tintorera is a 1977 Mexican-British horror directed by René Cardona Jr and starring Susan George, Hugo Stiglitz, Fiona Lewis and Andrés García. It is based on the novel of the same name by oceanographer Ramón Bravo that studied the species of shark known as "tintorera" and discovered the...

(1977) which became a cult classic.

He was able to capitalize on the spirit of cooperation between the Mexican, Spanish, and Italian film industries of the late-70s and was able to make a spate of comparatively large-budget exploitation films with professional international casts and crews. He also was able to hire several once-popular American actors during this period, such as Joseph Cotten

Joseph Cotten

Joseph Cheshire Cotten was an American actor of stage and film. Cotten achieved prominence on Broadway, starring in the original productions of The Philadelphia Story and Sabrina Fair...

, John Huston

John Huston

John Marcellus Huston was an American film director, screenwriter and actor. He wrote most of the 37 feature films he directed, many of which are today considered classics: The Maltese Falcon , The Treasure of the Sierra Madre , Key Largo , The Asphalt Jungle , The African Queen , Moulin Rouge...

, Gene Barry

Gene Barry

Gene Barry was an American stage, screen, and television actor. Barry is best remembered for his leading roles in the films The Atomic City and The War of The Worlds and for his portrayal of the title character in the TV series Bat Masterson, among many roles.-Personal life:Barry was born...

, Stuart Whitman

Stuart Whitman

Stuart Maxwell Whitman is an American actor.Stuart Whitman is arguably best-known for playing Marshal Jim Crown in the western television series Cimarron Strip in 1967...

, John Ireland

John Ireland (actor)

John Benjamin Ireland was an actor and film director.-Biography:Born in Vancouver, British Columbia, he was raised in New York City from the age of 18. He started out in minor stage roles on Broadway...

, Arthur Kennedy

Arthur Kennedy (actor)

Arthur Kennedy was an American stage and film actor known for his versatility in supporting film roles and his ability to create "an exceptional honesty and naturalness on stage" especially in the original casts of Arthur Miller plays on Broadway.- Early life and education :Kennedy was born John...

, and Lionel Stander

Lionel Stander

Lionel Jay Stander was an American actor in films, radio, theater and television.-Early life and career:Lionel Stander was born in The Bronx, New York, to Russian Jewish immigrants, the first of three children...

 to help boost international ticket sales. Most of these actors were fresh from similar guest appearances in Italian films of the same period. He dabbled in a variety of genres touching everything from disaster movies (Cyclone [1978]) to sensational dramas of historic events as Guyana: Crime of the Century

Guyana: Crime of the Century

Guyana: Crime of the Century is a 1979 exploitation horror film written and directed by René Cardona Jr.. The film, which was shot in Mexico is very loosely based on the Jonestown Massacre. It stars a number of American actors such as Stuart Whitman and Gene Barry...

(1979).

This brief period of international success waned in the mid-80s and he went back to Spanish-language Mexican "B-films" for the next few decades up to his death. He commonly worked with either Mexican leading man Hugo Stiglitz

Hugo Stiglitz

Hugo Stiglitz is a Mexican actor. He was mostly famous in the 1970s and 1980s in Mexico after filming such film horror classics as Tintorera and La Noche de los mil gatos. He also filmed several movies in Hollywood and Italy...

 or Andrés García

Andrés García

Andrés García is a Dominican-born Mexican actor. He is known throughout Latin America and among Hispanics in the United States....

, who both briefly enjoyed some international fame while regulars in Cardona Jr. films.