As a doctor with a flair for the dramatic, Paul Clinco was the kind of guy who could sew you back together after carving you up in a mock, medieval sword fight.
He also played the blues, acted on stage, wrote award-winning science fiction, collected rare books and directed and produced a pair of B-movies shot on location in the Old Pueblo.
The countercultural Renaissance man died on May 1 at his home in the Old Fort Lowell Neighborhood. He was 74.
“He was a real Tucson character,” said his son, Demion Clinco.
But he didn’t start out that way.
Paul Edward Clinco was born in Santa Monica, California, on April 16, 1948, and grew up in Brentwood. The youngest of three siblings, he graduated from the Harvard School, a private academy in Los Angeles, where he founded the fencing club and directed and starred in numerous plays.
He went on to study drama at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he appeared on stage with Michael Douglas. He finished his theater degree at UC Riverside, then earned a Ph.D. in medicine from UCLA.
Paul Clinco with wife, Judy, in 2014.
Paul moved to New York in 1974 for his residency at Mount Sinai Hospital. The following year, he joined the nation’s first major strike by doctors, who walked off the job by the thousands to protest unreasonably long shifts and other workplace grievances.
New York is also where he met his future wife of more than 40 years, a registered nurse named Judy Briggs.
Paul and Judy moved to Tucson in 1977 so he could complete his surgical residency at University Medical Center. It wasn’t the big city they were used to, but they soon put down roots here, welcoming two children while Judy launched a successful home health-care business.
Paul would spend most of his medical career in emergency rooms and urgent care centers, but he always found time for artistic pursuits. In 1978, he staged a two-character play called “Jesse and the Bandit Queen,” starring as the outlaw Jesse James in a four-show engagement at an unlikely venue: the long-gone Choo Choo’s Rock ‘N’ Roll Club on Fourth Avenue.
“It was a passion of his, and he was good at it,” said Judy. “He liked being on stage. It brought him a great deal of joy.”
Paul Clinco played the blues in Chicago clubs in the 1980s.
During a stint as a traveling ER doctor at small-town clinics in the Midwest, he would spend his down time in Chicago clubs, playing blues and boogie-woogie music alongside some of the city’s greats.
“Professor Paul,” as he called himself, never learned to read sheet music, but he could play and sing. In Tucson, he performed regularly in local bars like Terry & Zeke’s.
“He was the frontman of the band that would play there on Friday nights,” Judy said.
“If there was a piano he could play, he would,” Demion added.
He was also a long-time member of Society for Creative Anachronism, the Middle Ages reenactment group, which knighted him in the 1980s as Sir Gareth of Bloodwine Gorge.
His writing credits included numerous screenplays and short stories, including one that won first place in the L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future Contest.
“He loved stories,” Demion said. “He loved telling them, and he loved reading them.”
Paul was a life-long Democrat and a progressive when it came to politics and medicine. He was an early advocate for — and prescriber of — medical marijuana.
Paul Clinco in costume as Jesse James from the Tucson production of “Jesse and the Bandit Queen” in 1978.
He practiced hypnotherapy and the neopagan religion of Gardnerian Wicca.
Every December for decades, he and Judy would open their historic adobe house near Fort Lowell Park to host a winter solstice party for more than 100 guests.
“There would be a bonfire. He would lead people in chanting. It was a whole thing,” Demion said.
“It became the highlight for a lot of people’s Christmas,” Judy added.
At other times, the Clinco house doubled as a library, a writing studio, a music rehearsal space and a movie set.
In 1992, he co-wrote, produced and directed “Death Magic,” a self-funded, feature-length horror movie about modern-day magicians who bring a Civil War soldier back from the dead, only to see him go on a killing spree against the descendants of his enemies.
Paul Clinco the writer in 1989.
“It was shot all over Tucson,” Demion said. “It was really a spectacle — and it was always available on VHS at Casa Video.”
Paul followed that in 2008 with a low-budget film noir called “Sweet Love and Deadly,” and he remained involved in Tucson’s writing and film communities after that.
If something interested him, he wanted to experience it. Demion said his dad traveled to Egypt and spent time with the Bedouins at the famed Siwa Oasis.
“One year, he went off to take part in a reenactment of the Battle of Hastings,” Demion said. “He was such an adventurer — born in the wrong century, not just the wrong decade.”
Paul was preceded in death by his parents, Arthur and Martha Romm Clinco, his brother, Robert Clinco, and his sister, Barbara (Clinco) Nudell.
He is survived by his wife, Judy; son, Demion; daughter, Briggs Clinco; sister-in-law, Shelly Clinco; nephews, Geoff Nudel, David Nudell and Marcus Clinco; and their families.
A memorial service for Paul will be held at 10 a.m. May 28 at the San Pedro Chapel, 5230 E. Fort Lowell Road, followed by a reception at the Clinco Home.
Paul Clinco and actress-nurse Amanda Burr from their Tucson production of “Jesse and the Bandit Queen” in 1978.
Paul Clinco, a.k.a. Sir Gareth of Bloodwine Gorge, on horseback at a Society for Creative Anachronism event in 1990.
Paul Clinco sings and plays piano in Tucson in 1990.
Director Paul Clinco on the Tucson set of his self-funded, low-budget 1992 horror movie "Death Magic."
