Born in 1924, he has suffered a fiery demise every year since and remains Santa Fe's equivalent of the bogeyman.

A large crowd is expected today to celebrate the 87th death of Zozobra, aka Old Man Gloom, as the Santa Fe Kiwanis presents his annual burning at Fort Marcy Park.

The late artist Will Shuster (1893-1969) is credited with giving birth to Zozobra back in 1924, although former New Mexican editor E. Dana Johnson is reportedly the one who named him. For the first two years, the effigy was known as Old Man Groucher.

Though he's put on weight and grown some over the years — he was 18 feet tall in 1924; now he's close to 50 feet — not much has changed with Zozobra, whose conflagration precedes the Fiesta de Santa Fe weekend.

"It's an exciting event," said Priscilla Carr, who attended her first Zozobra burning in 1934. "It gets everybody up on a high note to start Fiesta. He wasn't as large then as he is now. I remember they burned him down where the library is now. It was a small event, but everybody came."

Jean Seth — credited with opening the first gallery on Canyon Road in the mid-1960s — recalled watching Zozobra burn downtown from a first-floor balcony at La Fonda in the late 1930s.

"Jacques Cartier (as the fire dancer) was dancing on a drum, and he was painted gold, and that was really exciting," she said.

Cartier is the second official fire dancer, according to Ray Valdez, event organizer and builder for Zozobra. The first fire dancer was the unsung Rosina Muñiz, he said. Helene Luna has the title now. (The three other fire dancers over the years were James "Chip" Lilienthal, Doenika Lilienthal and Katy Lilienthal.)

Zozobra originally burned in an open field somewhere between what is now the Main Library and the current offices of The Santa Fe Reporter, Valdez said. There was a fire station nearby at the old City Hall, which reassured everyone.

Zozobra moved to Fort Marcy in either 1939 or 1940. Accounts vary, though Shuster, in a 1964 interview, said it was December 1940, because he recalled that it was snowing, and film star Errol Flynn torched the marionette.

Flynn was in Santa Fe to promote the Western Santa Fe Trail. According to Valdez, Warner Bros. asked Shuster and company to build a Zozobra that would look like a Warner Bros. cartoon character, so that year, Tito Coco (Uncle Bogeyman) was created. Valdez said he'd like to revive Tito Coco in the future.

Valdez first saw Zozobra burn in 1971 while sitting atop his parents' wood-paneled station wagon. In those days, you could drive your car into the park and watch Zozobra like you were at a drive-in movie.

"I don't actually remember him burning, but I remember him groaning, and I remember the dust, and I remember the frustration of everyone in their cars trying to get out of the park," Valdez said.

Photojournalist Steve Northup — former photo chief for The Santa Fe New Mexican — also recalled the days when visitors drove their cars onto the baseball field.

Shuster was a fishing companion of Northup's father, and one year Shuster asked Northup to play a gloom — one of Zozobra's cohorts who is chased away by the fire dancer before Zozobra is set ablaze.

"I think Harold Gans was the growler then," Northup said. "We had one short practice, and then they wrapped us in sheets and off we went. We got to the bottom of Zozobra and stood there in our sheets when the fire started — I'm sure OSHA (the federal Occupational Health and Safety Administration) would be horrified. Shuster was there all the time, making sure everything was all right. PNM (Public Service Company of New Mexico) used to bring in an electric pole, so when Zozobra burned, the pole went up as well."

Northup recalled the year during World War II when Zozobra had "definite Japanese characteristics." He also recalls Zozobra looking like President Richard Nixon sometime around 1970.

Over the years, the burning was expanded as an entertainment event, with poets, musicians and various performers taking to the stage ahead of time to warm up the audience. Some years Zozobra burned too fast, while other years he took his time dying.

"He was supposed to burn from the bottom up, but I remember some years his head would burn first," said Susan Harrison Kelly, who has attended most of the Zozobra burnings since the end of World War II. "And sometimes it was hard to get him to burn."

Neither Kelly nor Seth nor any other Zozobra veterans recall any time when Zozobra managed to escape the flames or created mayhem of any sorts. But there is a myth that Zozobra's head broke loose once and rolled into the crowd.

Not true, Valdez said. His mother, who taught at Capshaw Middle School for years, perpetrated this story after she heard it. Valdez still encounters schoolchildren who ask about the time Zozo's head fell off.

For today's youth, Zozobra still affords a chance to shake all the gloom away and join in a community celebration. Olivia Summa, 20, and Julia Hoffman, 21, are former Santa Feans who now attend The University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. Both plan to attend tonight's event.

Summa recalls climbing on top of the so-called "Hippie Bus" to watch Zozobra in the late 1980s. From middle school on, she started hanging out with her peers at the second-base area of the ball field.

"It gets crazy on second base," she said. "Everybody is screaming, there can be mud fights if there's rain, and there's some drinking. (Bringing alcohol into the park is prohibited.) But you'd run into so many people from all walks of life who you hadn't seen in a year."

Summa brought a lot of gloom to burn last year, given she lost both her father to cancer and her home to a fire within the span of a few months in 2009.

Hoffman — who recalled running away from Zozobra's screams the first year she saw him (she was little) — said his burning represents a new beginning.

"It makes us look back at the past year and think about what we want to make better," she said. "Zozobra also brings up a lot about the future — what we expect, when are we going to see each other again. Because we all go off on our separate paths and then we all come back to Zozobra to reunite, and I think that's a beautiful thing."


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Contact Robert Nott at 986-3021 or rnott@sfnewmexican.com.