FILM · 1979 · SPAIN
Jaguar Lives!
26 archived facts 2 topics 1 source Last reviewed Oct 2026
All facts (26)
- #001
The film's male lead was Joe Lewis, who had recently won the World Heavyweight Karate Championship in 1979. He had once trained with Bruce Lee and had fought several matches against Chuck Norris in the 1960s.
- #002
Four actors in this film appeared in James Bond films: Joseph Wiseman played the first Bond villain in Dr. No (1962); Donald Pleasence played Bond's arch-enemy Ernst Stavro Blofeld in You Only Live Twice (1967); Sir Christopher Lee played a Bond villain in The Man with the Golden Gun (1974); and Barbara Bach played Major Anya Amasova in The Spy Who Loved Me (1977).
- #003
This was actor Joe Lewis's first starring role in a theatrical feature film.
- #004
According to an article published in the July-August 1978 issue of 'Mediascene' magazine, the film was planned as the first in a series of action films featuring the special agent character Jonathan Cross, to be played by Joe Lewis. He signed a four-picture deal with executive producer Sandy Howard, but no further sequels to this film were made.
- #005
Actors Christopher Lee and Anthony De Longis had previously appeared together in Circle of Iron (1978).
- #006
Actors Capucine and Christopher Lee both appeared in Jaguar Lives! (1979) and Arabian Adventure (1979), both of which were released in 1979.
- #007
Actors John Huston and Christopher Lee had previously worked together on Moulin Rouge (1952), which Huston produced and directed; Lee appeared in a small, uncredited role. Both also worked on Errol Flynn: Portrait of a Swashbuckler (1983), on which Lee was the narrator and Huston discussed directing Flynn in The Roots of Heaven (1958).
- #008
The film's main shooting location was Spain, where six of the film's ten weeks of shooting took place. According to the film's official publicity, the historic locations in Spain where the picture was shot included Belmonte Castle, the Almeria Alcazar and the Valley of the Fallen.
- #009
This was the final theatrical film of actor Joseph Wiseman, who played Ben Ashir.
- #010
This was actor Joe Lewis's first credited acting role in a theatrical feature film.
- #011
Star Joe Lewis is billed for staging the film's action scenes. At the end of the title sequence, the credits read: ''Action staged by Joe Lewis''.
- #012
According to 'Wikipedia', ''Despite receiving top billing, stars such as Christopher Lee, Barbara Bach and Donald Pleasence appear very little in the narrative''.
- #013
The film was re-released in UK cinemas on a double bill with City on Fire (1979). The film's poster carried the tagline: ''From killer flames to kung-fu action… the double bill that never gives up!''.
- #014
Principal photography was planned to be shot over six weeks in Spain and four weeks in other countries including Japan, Germany, Italy and Hong Kong, amounting to a total of ten weeks of production shooting.
- #015
According to a column published in the 23 May 1978 issue of the show business trade paper 'The Hollywood Reporter', a region in northern Spain doubled for the Colorado mountains of the United States.
- #016
Actors John Huston and Woody Strode had appeared together in The Devil's Backbone (1970) in the early 1970s. Jaguar Lives! (1979) was released in 1979, at the end of the 1970s decade.
- #017
Robert O. Ragland's score, performed by the National Philharmonic Orchestra and first recorded in London, England, had its premiere on CD and MP3 formats in August 2021.
- #018
Actors Capucine and Barbara Bach had previously appeared together in Ecco noi per esempio… (1977) a few years earlier.
- #019
The film's end title sequence offers special thanks to ''Shaw Brothers, Limited Hong Kong'' and the ''Shochiku Company, Limited Japan''.
- #020
Special agent Jonathan Cross, played by Joe Lewis, had the code name "Jaguar".
- #021
The global international espionage and spy organization was called "G-6".
- #022
The opening title card of this film reads "BÜYÜK VADİ".
- #023
The main shooting period of this picture was a production shoot in 1978 that lasted about ten weeks, between late June and early September of that year.
- #024
Joe Lewis, who played Jaguar, also known as Jonathan Cross, received a "presenter" credit on the film's posters reading "I present Joe Lewis as Jaguar".
- #025
The small republican nation of Santa Fortuna is fictional and does not exist in real life.
- #026
Regarded as an imitation of a James Bond film, this action film was released in 1979, the same year the Bond film Moonraker (1979) was released.
Continue through the archive
Sources & editorial notes
Reference databases
Sources for the entries on this page
- IMDb IMDb kaydı
Information from external sources is independently selected, consolidated and edited by Arka Evren. Sources are listed for verification and further reading. Encyclopedia text is used under its licence (CC BY-SA). How we work