Paco Manoja: The Torremolinos 'influencer' who went skinny-dipping with Brigitte Bardot

Brigitte Bardot ended that night in Torremolinos on the beach, flagrantly disregarding the laws on vagrancy and lewd behaviour. Drunk, completely naked and swimming in the sea. Also, she was not alone as she was accompanied by Paco Manoja, who still remembers that night. "She came to the bar for dinner, we danced and ended up in the sea with our clothes off," says this artist and businessman with a mischievous smile. The story is very similar to those of Ava Gardner's revelries in Spain, whose fleeting lovers rushed to tell tales afterwards. At this point, our narrator falls silent. I suggest this is no longer an official secret. The sarcastic smile on his lips deepens, prolonging the dramatic pause, but he doesn't say a word. Then, like a skilled bullfighter, he changes tack and mentions Ava, whom he met another night, somewhat worse for wear and trying to get home after a party in El Dorado. "She didn't even remember where she was staying, but I knew she was at the Finca La Verdad owned by journalist Jorge Fiestas, so I found her a taxi and sent her home," claims the man who never missed a party.

Owner of Bar Central, "the most 'chic' place in Torremolinos", as Costa del Sol chronicler Paco Lancha dubbed it, Manoja opens up his home, his photo albums and his privileged memory that, at 94 years of age, works like clockwork. The two people behind this meeting are also well-known: Remi Fernández Campoy, owner of the legendary record shop Mi-Sol in Calle San Miguel, and playwright Carlos Zamarriego. The four of us settle down under a large painting that bears Manoja's signature - a Venetian landscape full of hot air balloons. A perfect metaphor for this 20th-century influencer who has flown a thousand and one nights amid his multiple activities as a hotelier, fashion entrepreneur, painter, antique dealer and artist of life. Merits to which we must add the intangible one of charisma, which soon appears in his delightful conversation, peppered with actors, singers and celebrities who stopped by his bar and with whom he ended up having dinner, drinks and sharing secrets.

His memories feature Hollywood stars such as Elizabeth Taylor, Eddie Fisher, Melvyn Douglas, Peter Lorre, Diana Dors and a couple of foreigners who made their fortune on Sunset Boulevard and ended up as refugees in Malaga, the Hungarian Paul Lukas and the Russian Mischa Auer. Also the pioneering April Ashley (the first trans woman), drag queen Danny La Rue, pianist Pia Beck and aristocrats like the abdicated king, Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson in the "most boring" party he can recall.

Of course, there were famous Spaniards too: Imperio Argentina, Paquita Rico, Antonio El Bailarín, and the couple formed by flamenco dancer Lola Medina and aviator Américo. It didn't end well with the latter because of that skinny dip with BB. His people skills are evident: "I was one of the few who spoke English at the time."

That was the reason why he ended up with American singer Eddie Fisher. "The owner of the hotel where he was staying called me to take him to the bullfight and explain everything, but halfway through the bullfight he said to me: 'Let's go for martinis'. And we ended up in Calle Larios." He was drinking with the paparazzi's most sought-after celebrity at the time, after the controversial artist left his wife, actress Debbie Reynolds, for her then best friend, film star Liz Taylor. To put some distance between themselves and that highly publicised infidelity, the pair left the heavy atmosphere of Hollywood for the uncluttered Torremolinos skyline.

"Eddie came here with Elizabeth who was filming Scent of Mystery, which was a complete flop," says Manoja.

Flipping through albums, it's not long before we spot the legendary footballer Bobby Moore, captain of the England football team who won the World Cup in 1966.

There is also a photo published by SUR of the cocktail party organised by Manoja in Torremolinos in tribute to the football star, which was attended by the president of Club Deportivo Málaga, Juan Moreno de Luna, and Manchester City assistant manager, Malcolm Allison.

"Bobby came to my house and I went to his when visiting London," a testament of the closeness between the two, also evidenced by the next photo in which Moore gives the Malaga native his England national team shirt with the number 6 on the back and the clipping from the Daily Express reporting that Moore had promised Manoja that if he won the World Cup he would give him his iconic kit. "I sold it for £3,000," he blurts out. An example of his entrepreneurial spirit. A genius and quite the personality.

"You know what's worth a lot of money?" he asks, as he turns the page and pulls out a weighty document bearing a dozen signatures with affectionate messages to "amigo" Paco, the "Spanish fly". "This is the menu from England's World Cup commemorative dinner signed by all the players," he says, proudly showing off his treasure, as if he had just scored a goal against us. "This is pure gold because they've never won another World Cup," he says as he clasps the exclusive menu card from the London Hilton.

Manoja not only speaks English fluently, but his Torremolinos accent has a hint of American. Picked up from when he split his time in the 80s and 90s between Malaga and Satellite Beach in Florida. That is why he says "penthouse" to refer to a friend's flat he stayed in after he lost his apartment in a fall. He broke his hip and, while in hospital, he was diagnosed with a heart problem and fitted with a pacemaker. "I didn't have insurance in the US, so it was ruinous. I had to sell the house. The doctors took it away," he says with some resignation, although he has not lost his American connection.

"My friend stays here when he comes and I go to his 'penthouse'," says the man who was house-swapping before holiday websites made it fashionable.

He tells all this while sitting on his sofa, very close to a frame with a signed photo from another actor that also has the presidential seal of the White House and reads "Ronald Reagan". "I found out from his wife Nancy's secretary that the US president had a horse museum, and when I found a bronze of a Spanish horse saddle in an antique shop, I bought it and gifted it to him. In return he sent me two dedicated photos," he says with pride. His home is also a museum, not just for the photos, the souvenirs and his exotic collection of Chinese, Indian and Persian carved figures. His walls have everything, from an exclusive small painting by 19th-century English landscape painter George Turner to his own oil paintings of landscapes. From the balloons in Venice to his particular view of Calle San Miguel in Torremolinos when it was the central thoroughfare of a Malaga district dotted with rustic, single-storey houses.

The album features a catalogue from the Bodley Gallery in New York from 1961. It is the exhibition 'Paintings of Andalucía' and the artist is none other than Paco Manoja. That's quite a goal. "Paco's first exhibition was with Palmira Abelló at Bar Central and it was magnificent," recalls Remi Fernández Campoy, who can't resist talking up his artist friend.

Manoja comes across a 1970s photo of some tourists on the terrace of his bar illustrated in the Sunday supplement of ABC newspaper in 1972. "El Central was the 'meeting point' for everyone," says the businessman, bringing out another perfectly pronounced anglicism, which reminds Remi that Paco was also a fashion pioneer in Calle San Miguel. "I opened a boutique, specialising in leather goods, and as in Franco's times you couldn't give foreign names to shops, I named it Oscar because the actor Paul Lukas gave me his Hollywood statuette and I displayed it in the shop."

Manoja won the Oscar out of friendship and loyalty to Lukas, although he lost it in a car crash. "They crashed a car into the shop and took all the furs, but what hurt me most was that they stole my prize." By the time he turned 50 he wasn't just running Bar Central bar in Plaza Andalucía, but also La Mañana restaurant, three boutiques (one in Marbella and Adam and Oscar in Torremolinos), a hairdresser's, a travel agency and a finca in Cártama. His nose for business precedes him. A gift that also led him to Brigitte Bardot, the story we ask about again.

"She came looking for me because her sister, who had been to Torremolinos, gave her my address. She arrived and asked me for a bottle of whisky, but a real one, because back then there was nothing but DYC here and it turned out that it made her sick," says Manoja, while Remi and Carlos burst out laughing as they imagined the scene. The hotelier used to buy bottles of scotch on the cheap from the hostesses who took British tourists to Gibraltar. This was during BB's filming of The Night Heaven Fell (1958) on the Costa del Sol and, bottle after bottle, it all ended on the beach by moonlight.

"We became good friends," he says with a cheeky grin. Then he points to the album and says that he has no photos left of Bardot because one day his flying friend Américo, in a fit of jealousy, threw all his snapshots with the star of And God Created Woman (1956) into the fireplace and they burned.

"I had none left, so I never gave him another cup of coffee at the bar," he says, still fuming. So, there was some romance? Then, just as if he'd loosened up from a few whiskies kept under the bar, this time he answers.

"There was no affair because we were both too drunk," he states, recovering his mischievous smile, as he gazes out the window of his apartment overlooking the Bajondillo. That very same beach where, 70 years ago, he went skinny-dipping with a certain someone - zero consequences and thankfully not stopped by the police.