Xarici Actors
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The son of the renowned French sculptor Paul Belmondo, he studied at Conservatoire National Superieur d'Art Dramatique (CNSAD); after the minor stage performances he made his screen debut in À pied, à cheval et en voiture (1957) but the episodes with his participation were cut before release. However, the breakthrough role in Jean-Luc Godard's Breathless (1960) made him one of the key figures in the French New Wave. Since mid-60s he completely switched to commercial mainstream pictures and became a big comedy and action star in France. Following the example of Alain Delon he founded his own production company Cerito named after his grandmother's maiden name. In 1989 he was awarded Cesar for his performance in Itinerary of a Spoiled Child (1988) . Recently he returned to stage performing in the Théâtre Marigny, Paris, notably as Edmund Kean or Cyrano de Bergerac. He still appears in the movies but not so often as before preferring mostly dramatic roles. The president of France distinguished him with order of Legion of Honour. Belmondo had three children with his first spouse Elodie Constant: Patricia Belmondo ( who died in a fire in 1993), Florence Belmondo and Paul Belmondo. In 2003, he had another daughter, Stella Belmondo, with his second spouse Natty Belmondo. None of his children became actors though you could have seen his son Paul in an episodic role (the same as his father, at an earlier age) in Itinerary of a Spoiled Child (1988).- Actor
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Louis Germain David de Funès de Galarza was born on July 31, 1914, in Courbevoie, France. His father, named Carlos Luis de Funes de Galarza, was a former lawyer of Seville, Spain, who became a diamond cutter. His mother, named Leonor Soto Reguera, was of Spanish and Portugese extraction.
Young Louis de Funès was fond of drawing and piano playing. He dropped out of school and worked various jobs, mostly as a jazz pianist at Pigalle, making his customers laugh every time he made a grimace. He studied acting for one year at the Simon acting school. There he made some useful contacts, including Daniel Gélin among others. During the occupation of Paris in the Second World War, he continued his piano studies at a music school, where he fell in love with a secretary, named Jeanne de Maupassant, a grand-niece of writer Guy de Maupassant. She had fallen in love with "the young man who played jazz like god"; they married in 1943, and had two sons born in 1944 and 1949. Funès continued playing piano at clubs, knowing there wasn't much call for a short, balding, skinny actor. His wife and Daniel Gelin encouraged him until he managed to overcome his rejection. He made his film debut in 1945, at the age of 31, and went on playing about one hundred film roles in the next twenty years.
Louis de Funès shot to international fame in the 1960's after his roles in such slapstick comedies as The Gendarme of Saint-Tropez (1964) and the Fantomas (1964) trilogy. He brilliantly portrayed a funny French policeman, whose hilarious hyperactivity, uncontrolled anger, and sardonic laughter produced a highly comic effect. Funès was voted the most favorite actor in France in 1968, and remained very popular in Europe during the 1970's. He also continued to play on stage during his career as a film star, and was acclaimed for his stage works in classic French theatre. Funès was instrumental in making film adaptations of such theatre plays as 'Oscar continues' and the Molière's 'The Miser', among other plays.
Nicknamed "the man with the forty faces per minute", Louis de Funès played bit parts in over eighty films, before he got his first leading roles, eventually becoming the leading French comedian. He co-starred with the major French actors of the time, including Jean Marais and Mylène Demongeot in the Fantomas trilogy, and also Jean Gabin, Fernandel, Bourvil, Coluche, Annie Girardot, and Yves Montand. Funès's collaboration with director Gérard Oury produced a memorable tandem of Funès-Bourvil. He also worked with Jean Girault in the famous 'Gendarmes' series. In a departure from the Gendarme image, Funès collaborated with Claude Zidi, who wrote for him a new character full of nuances and frankness in The Wing or The Thigh? (1976), which is arguably the best of his roles.
Funès played over 130 roles in film and over 100 roles on stage. From 1943-1983 Louis de Funès was married to Jeanne Barthelemy de Maupassant. Their son, Olivier De Funès , had a brief acting career before becoming a pilot with Air France, his other son, named Patrick de Funès, became a medical doctor. Louis de Funès was also a rose grower, a variety of roses has been named the "Louis de Funès rose" after him. He died of a heart attack and complications of a stroke on January 27, 1983, in Nantes, France. He was laid to rest in the Cimetière du Cellier, and a monument of him was erected in the rose-garden of his wife's castle.- Actor
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Bud Spencer, the popular Italian actor who starred in innumerable spaghetti Westerns and action-packed potboilers during the 1960s and 1970s, was born Carlo Pedersoli on October 31, 1929, in Naples. The first Italian to swim the 100-meter freestyle in less than a minute, Spencer competed as a swimmer on the Italian National Team at the Olympic Summer games in both Helsinki, Finland, in 1952 and Melbourne, Australia, in 1956. He was also an Olympic-class water polo player.
Educated as an attorney, he was bitten by the acting bug and appeared as a member of the Praetorian Guard in his first movie, MGM's epic Quo Vadis (1951) (which was shot in Italy) in 1951. During the 1950s and first half of the 1960s he appeared in films made for the Italian market, but his career was strictly minor league until the late 1960s. He changed his screen name to "Bud Spencer" in 1967, as an homage to Spencer Tracy and to the American beer Budweiser. Spencer allegedly thought it was funny to call himself "Bud" in light of his huge frame.
After the name change, Spencer achieved his greatest success in spaghetti Westerns lensed for a global audience. Teaming up with fellow Italian Terence Hill, the two made such international hits as Ace High (1968) and They Call Me Trinity (1970) ("They Call Me Trinity"). Their dual outings made both stars famous, particularly in Europe. In all, Spencer made 18 movies with Hill.
He became a jet airplane and helicopter pilot after appearing in All the Way Boys (1972) and owned an air transportation company, Mistral Air, which he founded in 1984. However, he terminated his business interest in Mistral and entered the children's clothing industry. After 1983 Spencer's movie career slowed down, though he did have a big success in the early 1990s with the TV action-drama series "Extralarge". A man of many talents, Spencer wrote screenplays and texts for some of his movies. He also has registered several patents.
Spencer married Maria Amato in 1960 and they have three children, Giuseppe (born 1961), Christine (1962) and Diamante (1972).
In 2005 Spencer entered politics, standing as regional councillor in Lazio for the center-right Forza Italia party. He became a politician specifically at the bequest of then-Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. According to Spencer, "In my life, I've done everything. There are only three things I haven't been - a ballet dancer, a jockey and a politician. Given that the first two jobs are out of the question, I'll throw myself into politics."
Berlusconi, who was a media tycoon in the vein of Rupert Murdoch before he entered politics, recruited Spencer as he was "still a major draw for the viewer, alias the voter." Critics of Berlusconi--who tried to retain power by launching a campaign to portray his allies as the embodiment of "good" and the leftists of the opposition as "evil"--was derided as an example of "politica spettacolo" ("showbiz politics").
Spencer announced his new career at a "Felliniesque" press conference at a Rome hotel, at which he hardly moved and had little to say except homilies about upholding family values. Spencer sat between two Forza Italia handlers, and according to one major Italian newspaper, "From one moment to the next, you expected this mountain of a man to grab the heads of the two presenters and smack them together in his usual style, as he has been seen doing countless times on the big screen and television." The audition proved to be a flop: Spencer lost the seat, and Berlusconi's party was swept from power in 2006.- Actor
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Vittorio Gassman studied theatre in his youth and was quite a good basketball player. He debuted on stage in 1943 and soon felt home in all classical theatre works. Since 1946 he also worked at the movies and his first big role there was the criminal in Bitter Rice (1949). This fixed him to his main parts: The ambiguous gentleman inflicting pain and pleasure at the same time. He also participated in the Italian comedies and in American movies but the latter with only minor success. As a homage to his passion for the theatre he directed a cinema version of the play Kean: Genius or Scoundrel (1957).- Actor
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One of Italy's most captivating and talented cinematic comedy stars, Italian veteran Alberto Sordi was known for satirizing his country's social mores in pungent black comedies, farcical tales and grim drama. He, along with peers Vittorio Gassman, Ugo Tognazzi and Nino Manfredi, arguably represent the finest of post-war Italian cinema history. Born in Rome on June 15, 1920 in the Trastevere district, Sordi grew up in a musical family, his father being a tuba player for the Rome Opera House. A choir boy at the Sistine Chapel, he later trained for the theater in Milan but returned to Rome to work in radio and musical halls in comedy shows. In the late 30s he found his way into film as an extra. His first important role was in The Three Pilots (1942), a fascist war picture, but he wouldn't hit international stardom until a decade later when he starred in Federico Fellini's early films The White Sheik (1952) and I Vitelloni (1953). The titles of some of his most prolific characters were as simple as their titles: The Seducer, The Bachelor, The Husband, The Widower, The Traffic Cop, and The Moralist. Most of his protagonists amusingly, but not always pleasantly, stereotyped the worst attributes of Italian men and society, yet many of his films are unparalleled in quality and considered masterpieces. Sordi went on to star, direct and co-write more than 150 films. Never married and rather an introvert, he enjoyed a quiet, reclusive personal life. On his 80th birthday, he was made Mayor of Rome for the day. In 2002, after 190 films, he announced his retirement, and died of a heart attack the following year at age 82.- Actor
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With to Totò and Peppino De Filippo, Franco Franchi and Ciccio Ingrassia has been the best couple of the Italian comic cinema. Both sicilian, of Palermo, began on the roads of sicilian city, in the tradition of the ballad singer and the actors of the Comedy of the Art. Scenes, imitations, witticism, movements of puppet that entertained the public gather around they. One of the interpretations more celebrates of Franco Franchi was the parody of Hitler: years after, in 1967, will re-propose it in the movie "Due marines e un generale", with Buster Keaton to his last film. The debut of the couple happens in 1954, to the theatre "Costa" of Castelvetrano (Trapani, Sicily). The execute a parody centralized on the song "Core 'ngrato". Ciccio tries to sing the song but he's often interrupted by Franco. The sketch collects much success because has got all the necessary one to true comic actor - the mimic art, the ability to invent witticismes, the comic times - and also for the scene in which Franco transformed him in the precisest balance.
To the definition of the two personages has contributed Lucio Fulci, that directed them for the first time in 1962, in "I due della legione straniera". Was their first movie as protagonists, but - like the director in an interview has remembered - the film-producer, the Titanus, in that moment in phase of relaunching, did not think that it could to meet with success; for this reason don't appear like film-producer. The film instead obtained very success and so the producer decide to appear in the new edition of the movie. Franco and Ciccio are launched in a series of movies and many parodies of every kind: from the Western to the Action, the Thriller to the Comedy. When Sergio Leone direct "Per un pugno di dollari" and "Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo", Franco and Ciccio are the protagonists of "Per un pugno nell'occhio" and "Il bello, il brutto, il cretino". To the movie "Indovina chi viene a cena", a manifesto of the antiracism in the American society, of the end of the Sixty, Franco and Cicco answer with "Indovina chi viene a merenda". In 1972, they play the parody the Thriller; that one of the DarioArgento of "Il gatto a nove code" (more "the American" of "the animal" trilogy). Directed by Richard Kean (Osvaldo Civirani), is "Due gattoni a nove code... e mezzo ad Amsterdam", in the part of two photographers to the center of an intrigue, after to have photographed a man. In 1973, Franco, directed by Nando Cicero, is the protagonist of "Ku fu? Dalla Sicilia con furore", parody of "Dalla Cina con furore", the movie with Bruce Lee.
In 1975, Ciccio directs and interprets "L'Esorciccio", parody of "L'Esorcista", whose popularity and consideration from part of the critic increase proportionally with pass of the years. Beside he there is not Franco; to his place Lino Banfi, that began to define the personage with which has become famous. To part the surrealistic scene of beginning, with Ciccio, archaeologist, that discovers the famous medallion, from which part all the vicissitude, the movie is characterized from a series of original ideas - the location in the Latium province, the passage of the object, the final scene - than renders one of the more amazing parodies in the italian cinematography, and initiator of a kind ("Frankenstein Junior", by Mel Brooks, is of some year after). Their cinematographic activity has been frantic, above all from the half to the end of Sixties. Between 1964 and the 1966 interpreted approximately forty films. To this purpose, they did not lack to remember the frenzy during this period, when they were found again to work also in three movies in the same day and to change the dresses of scene in car, during the movement from a set to the other. In kind it was be a matter of movie in which the script was reduced to the minimum and the film-producer counted on their ability to make all the movie, in order to reduce the costs and therefore the financings, knowing that then however at least it would have tripled to box-office the investment. Franco and Ciccio worked very much, accepting all the script proposed. Because - they remembered with pride and bitterness - feared to remain without job. They knew the value of the job, because had known the poverty.
Directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini, Franco Franchi and Ciccio Ingrassia, have the first role to outside of the sort until then followed. With to Totò, they recite in "Che cosa sono le nuvole?", third episode of the movie "Capriccio all'italiana" (1967). Ciccio had all the characteristics for being also interpreter of personages different from those of Italian comedy. In "Amarcord", Federico Fellini entrust to him the part of a man with a from the troubled destiny, perhaps the personage more famous of this movie. The face of Ciccio Ingrassia was a commutabile mask from the comicality to the drama, natural, whose distinguishing features seemed remodeled with the life, from first part of the his existence, that one of the poverty of never "calm" people, never "normal" ("La violenza: Quinto potere", direct by Florestano Vancini, 1972). A awfully sicilian face, popular and aristocratic. To half of Seventies, Franco and Ciccio had a period in which the their careers will proceed in separate way. But soon they resumed the way in common, landing in television, where they were protagonists of many varieties of success to the beginning of Eighties.
In 1985, the director Jean Jacques Annaud, for the selection of the actors for "Il nome della rosa", had chosen FrancoFranchi in order to interpret the part of "Salvatore", deformed monk, former follower of a heretic, then ends again in the presence of Inquisition. Franco refused the part - great opportunity of international renown - because did not want the public, accustomed to his traditional image, saw he in the cloth of a personage that must to be repulsive to the limits of the horror. Like for every other naturally comic actor, the art by Franco Franchi and Ciccio Ingrassia was founded on a complex articulation, derived from their history and from their experiences, which, also develop on the side of the irony, were also the premise for the ability to recite in dramatic or surrealist contexts. Franco died on the 9 December 1992, and his funeral happened in the historical center of Palermo, and was attended by many citizens. Ciccio died on the 28 April 2003.- Actor
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Certainly one of France's supreme farceurs in the classic tradition, comedian Pierre Richard was born to an upper crust family with an embarrassing riches of middle names as he was christened Pierre Richard Maurice Charles Leopold Defays. Working and building up his trade at the Paris Music Hall in the early years, he appeared in small movie roles throughout most of the 60s. In the 70s, however, he aimed his genius directly towards film and succeeded beyond the wildest expectations. Directing and co-writing many of his slapstick vehicles, his characters often have taken on an hilariously guileless persona and, coupled with his innate gift for klutzy physical comedy, have become an audience favorite for nearly four decades. His superior work in Distracted (1970) and The Troubles of Alfred (1972) was immediately recognized and this led to the international crossover hit The Tall Blond Man with One Black Shoe (1972) in which Richard played a naive, innocent concert musician plucked by chance to become a superspy on a top secret mission. A potent association in the 1960s and 1970s with actor/producer/director Yves Robert and the 1980s with writer/director Francis Veber and actor Gérard Depardieu produced several comedy classics: Very Happy Alexander (1968), The Return of the Tall Blond Man (1974), La Chèvre (1981), The ComDads (1983) and The Fugitives (1986). Many of Richard's classic comedies, including The Toy (1976), have spawned Hollywood remakes and imitations, though most pale compared to the originals.- Actor
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Terence Hill was born as Mario Girotti on March 29, 1939 in Venice, Italy to a chemist. His mother was German, and as a child the family lived near Dresden, Saxony, Germany where they survived the Allied bombings of World War II. Italian film-maker Dino Risi discovered him at a swimming meet and he made his first film at the age of 12, Vacanze col gangster (1952) (Holiday for Gangsters). He continued acting to finance his studies and motorcycle hobby. After studying classical literature at the University of Rome for three years, he decided to devote full time to acting. In 1962 he appeared in Luchino Visconti's The Leopard (1963), He then signed a contract for a series of adventure and western films in Germany. In 1967 he returned to Italy to play the lead in God Forgives... I Don't! (1967). While on location in Almeria, Spain, he married an American girl of Bavarian descent, Lori Zwicklbauer, who was the dialogue coach for the picture. The producers of this movie wanted him to change his name. He then got a list with 20 names on it and 24 hours time to choose one of these names. He decided to take Terence Hill cause he liked it the most and it has the same initials as his mother's name (Hildegard Thieme). They only told the public that "Hill" was his wife's name out of publicity reasons. At this time of upcoming feminism a man who took his wife's name was something special. In 1976 Hollywood called and he appeared in March or Die (1977) with Gene Hackman and starred in Mr. Billion (1977) with Valerie Perrine. Since then he has concentrated on action/adventure films starring himself and often working with long time partner Bud Spencer. Terence lives in Massachusetts and is a film producer, as well as talented and respected actor.- Actor
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Jean Marais was a popular French cinema actor and director who played over 100 roles in film and on television, and was also known for his many talents as a writer, painter and sculptor.
He was born Jean Alfred Villain-Marais on December 11, 1913, in Cherbourg, France. His father practiced veterinarian medicine, then fought in the World War I, and eventually left the family. Young Jean Marais was taken to Paris at the age of 4. There he was raised by his mother and grandmother. He attended the Lycée Condorcet, a prestigious State school where also studied his future film partners such as Louis de Funes and Jean Cocteau, and the faculty had such figures as Jean-Paul Sartre. At the age of 13, Marais dropped out of Lycee Condorcet, he tried several other schools, albeit he did not complete his college education, instead he was placed in a Catholic boarding school. At 16, he left school and became involved in amateur acting. After being rejected from drama schools, he took a job as a photographer's assistant and also worked as a caddy at a golf club.
In 1933 Marais made his film debut in Les Amoureux (1933) (aka.. Les Amoureux), by director Marcel L'Herbier. In 1937, at a stage rehearsal of 'King Aedipus', Marais met Jean Cocteau, and they remained close friends until Cocteau's death. Cocteau had a major influence on life and career of Jean Marais who appeared in almost every one of Cocteau's films. Together they made such classics as Beauty and the Beast (1946), Orpheus (1950) and Testament of Orpheus (1960), to name a few.
During the World War II, Marais was an actor in the occupied Paris. After liberation of Paris in 1944, he became a truck driver for the French Army, he was decorated for his courage. During the war Marais was married to his film partner, actress Mila Parély, and their marriage was blessed by Cocteau, who wanted Marais to be happy. Marais and Mila Parély divorced after two years of marriage, and shortly after their divorce, they worked together again in 'Beauty and the Beast' (1946), under directorship of Jean Cocteau. During the 1950s, Marais shot to international fame, after starring in films directed by Cocteau, Visconti, and others.
During the 1960s and 1970s, Marais went on to star in several popular comedies, such as the Fantomas (1964) trilogy by director André Hunebelle. He co-starred with many major French actors of the time, including such stars as Louis de Funès and Mylène Demongeot in the Fantomas trilogy, and also Jean Gabin, Guy Delorme, Bourvil, Danielle Darrieux, Michèle Morgan, and Yves Montand.
Jean Marais was also a remarkable stage actor known for his association with Théâtre de Paris, Théâtre de l'Atelie, and the Comédie Francaise, among others. Marais received numerous international awards and recognitions for his contribution to film art, including the French Legion of Honour (1996). He spent his later years living in his house in Vallaruis, in the South of France where he was involved in painting, sculpture and pottery, and was visited by Pablo Picasso and other cultural figures. Jean Marais died of a heart failure on November 8, 1998, in Cannes, France, and was laid to rest in the small Cemetiere de Vallauris, France.- Actor
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Among others of Ugo Tognazzi's superb, award-winning performances of his prolific career, this excellent Italian character star has been widely cherished for his classic comedy role of gay cabaret owner Renato Baldi, opposite Michel Serrault's hilariously mincing drag queen partner Alban, in La Cage aux Folles (1978) one of the biggest cross-over foreign hits to ever land on American soil.
Born Ottavio Tognazzi in Cremona, Italy, on March 23, 1922, by the time Ugo was a teen he was a bookkeeper for a salami factory and performed in local amateur theatricals on the sly. Appearing on the stage, he finally found an entry into films at age 28 in 1950 with a featured role in the war comedy I cadetti di Guascogna (1950). He built up a solid comedy resume in primarily Neapolitan 50's features including La paura fa 90 (1951) (his first co-starring role), Café chantant (1953), I milanesi a Napoli (1954), La moglie è uguale per tutti (1955), Domenica è sempre domenica (1958), Le confident de ces dames (1959) and Tipi da spiaggia (1959).
Ugo became a middle-aged European star the following decade. Turning in a number of powerhouse character studies, he excelled as bon vivants, adulterous husbands and other suave gents in primarily farcical comedy and saucy, sardonic romps, particularly those of director/writer Marco Ferreri. He also demonstrated a remarkable range when it came to portraying world-weary protagonists in political drama or grim satire. For Ferreri alone, he appeared in the award-winning The Conjugal Bed (1963), Countersex (1964), The Wedding March (1966), L'udienza (1972) and the masterful The Big Feast (1973), among others.
In 1978, Tognazzi decided to take a chance, and play a character unlike anything he had done, (and, also, rarely done, for fear of being 'stereotyped'), and co-starred with the wonderful Michel Serrault in an image-shattering part in 1978. What he did was experience the most popular role of his career as one-half of an aging gay couple who operate a drag club. La Cage aux Folles (1978) went on to spawn two sequels and an American remake (The Birdcage (1996) starring Robin Williams (in the Tognazzi role) and Nathan Lane (in the diva Serrault part).
Tognazzi won several acting honors over the course of his long career. He copped several European awards for his classic roles in The Monsters (1963) (The Monsters), I Knew Her Well (1965), The Climax (1967) (also a rare foreign Golden Globe nomination), La bambolona (1968), Il commissario Pepe (1969), Lady Caliph (1970) and Duck in Orange Sauce (1975). He capped it off with the Cannes Film Festival award for his trenchant performance in Tragedy of a Ridiculous Man (1981), the tale of a near-bankrupt factory owner who attempts to use the kidnapping of his son (played by his real-life eldest son Ricky Tognazzi) to his financial advantage. Tognazzi was also the father of actor Gianmarco Tognazzi and director Maria Sole Tognazzi, and had another son, producer/writer Thomas Robsahm, via a relationship with actress Margrete Robsahm.
In the eighties, Tognazzi focused strongly on the theater and starred in such plays as Luigi Pirandello's "Six Characters in Search of an Author" (1986, directed by Jean-Pierre Vincent in Paris, Théâtre de l' Europe) and Molière's "The Miser" (1989, where he sparked a controversy in Italian government circles when he improvised lines about corruption in high places during his performance). Although he directed himself in a handful of his own often sexually explicit films, including Il fischio al naso (1967) and Sissignore (1968), Ugo's true brilliance shines in front of the camera and in the works of other famed European directors, notably Ferrari, Bernardo Bertolucci, Pietro Germi, Dino Risi and Mario Monicelli. He worked up until the end with incisive starring performances in Arrivederci e grazie (1988), I giorni del commissario Ambrosio (1988), Tolérance (1989) and La batalla de los Tres Reyes (1990) (The Battle of the Three Kings). In 1972, at age 50, Tognazzi wed actress Franca Bettoia, who survives him. He died of a brain hemorrhage in 1990, age 68.- Actor
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Jean-Alexis Moncorgé started his career with 15 years at the theatre and debuted at the "Moulin Rouge" in Paris in 1929. Despite of his rude aspect he knew to be the gentleman of the French cinema in the time between the two World Wars. One of his most popular personalities was inspector Maigret. But he was also able to play all other kind of people: aristocrats, farmers, thieves and managers. He never stopped working and when death surprised him in 1976 he was still an institution for the French audience.- Actor
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Very popular actor and writer in Italy. He worked in over 80 movies and TV series. Known especially for portraing the character of "Fantozzi" on several movies. Paolo Villaggio was born on December 30, 1932 in Genoa, Liguria, Italy. He was known for Fantozzi (1975) (aka Fantozzi), Fantozzi 2 (1976), Fantozzi in Heaven (1993) and the TV Series Carabinieri (2002). He was married to Maura Albites. He died on July 3, 2017 in Rome, Lazio, Italy, just 7 months after completing his last movie W gli Sposi (2019).- Actor
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Alain Fabien Maurice Marcel Delon was born in Sceaux, Hauts-de-Seine, France, to Édith (Arnold) and Fabien Delon. His father was of French and Corsican Italian descent, and his mother was of French and German ancestry. His parents divorced early on, and Delon had a stormy childhood, being frequently expelled from school.
In 1953/1954 he served with the French Marines in Indochina. In the mid-'50s he worked at various odd jobs including waiter, salesman and porter in Les Halles market. He decided to try an acting career and in 1957 made his film debut in Yves Allégret's Quand la femme s'en mêle (1957). He declined an offer of a contract from producer David O. Selznick, and in 1960 he received international recognition for his role in Luchino Visconti's Rocco and His Brothers (1960). In 1961 he appeared on the stage in "'Tis a Pity She's a Whore", directed by Visconti, in Paris. In 1964 he formed his own production company, Delbeau Productions, and he produced a short film directed by Guy Gilles. In 1968 he found himself involved in murder, drug and sex scandal that indirectly implicated major politicians and show-business personalities, but he was eventually cleared of all charges. In the late 1960s he formed another company. Adel Film, and the next year he began producing features. In 1981 he directed his first film, To Kill a Cop (1981).
Delon was a sensation early in his career; he came to embody the young, energetic, often morally corrupted man. With his breathtaking good looks he was also destined to play tender lovers and romantic heroes, and he was a French embodiment of the type created in America by James Dean. His first outstanding success came with the role of the parasite Tom Ripley in 'Rene Clement''s sun-drenched thriller Purple Noon (1960). Delon presented a psychological portrait of a murderous young cynic who attempts to take on the identity of his victim. A totally different role was offered to him by Visconti in Rocco and His Brothers (1960). In this film Delon plays the devoted Rocco, who accepts the greatest sacrifices to save his shiftless brother Simon.
After several other films in Italy, Delon returned to the criminal genre with Jean Gabin in Any Number Can Win (1963). This work, a classic example of the genre, was distinguished not only by a soundly worked-out screenplay, but also by the careful production and the excellent performances of both Delon and Gabin. It was only in the late 1960s that the sleek and lethal Delon came to epitomize the calm, psychopathic hoodlum, staring into the camera like a cat assessing a mouse. His tough, ruthless side was first used to real effect by Jean-Pierre Melville in The Samurai (1967). In 1970 he had a huge success in the bloodstained Borsalino (1970)--which he also produced--playing a small-time gangster in the 1930s who, with Jean-Paul Belmondo, becomes king of the Marseilles underworld. Delon later won critical acclaim for his roles, against type, in Joseph Losey's Mr. Klein (1976) in which he played (brilliantly) the icily sinister title role, and the art-movie Swann in Love (1984). He has an older son Anthony Delon (who has also acted in a number of movies) from his first marriage to Nathalie Delon, and has a young son and daughter, Alain-Fabien and Anouchka with Rosalie.- Actor
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Gerlando Buzzanca, best known as Lando Buzzanca, is an Italian theatrical, film and television actor, whose career spanned over 55 years. Born in Palermo the son of a cinema projectionist, at 16 years old Buzzanca left the high school and moved to Rome to pursue his dream of becoming an actor. In order to survive, he took many jobs including waiter, furniture mover, and a brief appearance as a slave in the film "Ben-Hur". He made his official debut in Pietro Germi's "Divorce, Italian Style", and soon specialized in the role of the average immigrant from southern Italy. After two successful "James Tont" films in which he played a parody of James Bond, starting from the late 1960s, Buzzanca got a large success in a series of satirical commedia sexy all'italiana films which satirized major institutions such as politics, religion, trade unions and financial world. With the decline of the genre, he slowed his film activities, focusing into theatre and television, in which he enjoyed a resurgence of popularity in the 2000s thanks to a series of well-received TV-series. In 2013, following the death of his wife Lucia and a heavy depression, Buzzanca attempted suicide by cutting his veins. In 2015 he has fully recovered from depressive period undertaking a relationship with a younger woman, Antonella. In 2016 he participates as dancer in the television program "Ballando con le stelle" and lives a new and intense romance with a younger actress and journalist Francesca della Valle.- Actor
- Writer
- Music Department
'Antonio Griffo Focas Flavio Angelo Ducas Comneno Porfirogenito Gagliardi De Curtis di Bisanzio' was a descendant of the 'Comneno di Bizanzio' and also one of the most popular Italian film stars in history. His genre was undoubtedly the comedy where he achieved world fame. From 1917 he was an actor of the companies of the "comedia dell'arte" and also poet in Neapolitan dialect. In 1939 he started his career at the movies and as "Gaspare" in I due orfanelli (1947) he had his big breakthrough.- Actor
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- Music Department
Tomas Milian, an American actor born in Cuba; was trained at the Actors Studio. He appeared in a few plays on Broadway, as well as in a show by Jean Cocteau in Spoleto. Mauro Bolognini noticed him and that was the starting point of a rich cinematographic career in Italy, where he played in all manner of genres. He interpreted a mad psychopath in The Ugly Ones (1966) (aka "Bounty Killer"), a role he would then improve and diversify into an impressive gallery of neurotic and sadistic killers, first in "spaghetti westerns" (many directed by Sergio Corbucci), and then in violent action and police thrillers (many directed by Umberto Lenzi). His films gradually evolved into action comedies, as he played the recurrent characters of thief "Er Monnezza" and cop Nico Giraldi (the latter being originally based on the lead character in Serpico (1973)), two typically Roman characters who enjoyed great popularity in the '70s and '80s.- Actor
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Iconic American-born singer and actor in international films since the 1950s. Born in L.A. to Russian immigrant parents, Constantine studied voice in Vienna. He returned to the US, where his singing career wavered and he found work as a film extra. Constantine first achieved fame in Paris, where he launched a successful career as a popular singer under the tutelage of Édith Piaf. On screen from 1953, his tough guy manner was put to good use in French imitations of Humphrey Bogart films, several of which featured Peter Cheyney's no-nonsense, hard-hitting private detective, Lemmy Caution. In 1965 Jean-Luc Godard appropriated both Constantine and the Caution character for Alphaville (1965), a futuristic, parodic homage to the detective genre. The tough guys that craggy-faced Constantine played were ideals derived from the already stylized and ritualized world of G-men and private eyes found in American movies. Filmmakers of the New German Cinema resurrected Constantine and his persona; notably, Rainer Werner Fassbinder cast him as the laconic star of the film-within-the-film in Beware of a Holy Whore (1971). Constantine also appeared in a number of German TV dramas in the 70s and 80s and, late in life, reprised his most famous role in Godard's Germany Year 90 Nine Zero (1991).- Music Artist
- Actor
- Writer
Adriano Celentano is one of the most important singers of Italian pop music, but he's also been a creator of a comic genre in movies, with his characteristic way of walking and his facial expressions. For the most part, his films were commercially successful, in fact in the 70s and part of the 80s, he was king of the Italian box office in low budget movies. Probably, as an actor, his best film is Serafino (1968), directed by Pietro Germi. As a director he frequently casts Ornella Muti, Eleonora Giorgi and his wife Claudia Mori. He and Claudia have three children: Rosalinda Celentano Rosita Celentano and Giacomo Celentano. He also works often as a host for several Italian TV shows.- Actor
- Producer
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Blue-eyed and well-built Italian actor in international cinema, Franco Nero, was a painting photographer when he was discovered as an actor by director John Huston. He has since appeared in more than 200 movies around the world, working with Europe's top directors, such as Luis Buñuel, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Claude Chabrol, Sergey Bondarchuk, Michael Cacoyannis, Elio Petri, Marco Bellocchio, Enzo G. Castellari, among many others.
Nero was born in Parma (Northern Italy), in the family of a strict police sergeant. His inclination for acting had already become obvious in his teenage years, when he began organizing and participating in student plays. After a short stint at a leading theater school, he moved to Rome, where he joined a small group of friends for the purpose of making documentaries. Still unsure of his ultimate vocation, he worked various jobs on the crew. He studied economics and trade in Milan University, and appeared in popular Italian photo-novels. This gave him a chance to gain a little role in Carlo Lizzani's La Celestina P... R... (1965).
A year later, the handsome face of Nero was noticed by Huston, who chose him for the role of "Abel" in The Bible in the Beginning... (1966) (aka La Bibbia). But success came after he got the role of the lonely gunfighter, dragging a coffin, in one of the best spaghetti-westerns; Sergio Corbucci's Django (1966). Nero then filmed a few other westerns of that style as Ferdinando Baldi's Texas, Adios (1966) and Lucio Fulci's Massacre Time (1966).
In 1967, Joshua Logan cast him in the film version of the musical Camelot (1967) (Warner Bros.), opposite Vanessa Redgrave, for which he was nominated for a Golden Globe award. During filming of Camelot, he met actress Vanessa Redgrave, who become his long-time partner (they married decades later). He played with Catherine Deneuve in Luis Buñuel's Tristana (1970) and was directed by Sergey Bondarchuk in the war drama The Battle of Neretva (1969). Later, director Bondarchuk cast Nero for the role of famous American reporter "John Reed" in two-part "Krasnye kolokola II" (1982). In the late 60s and during the 70s, Nero played many different roles, but most of them connected with political and criminal genre, which criticized the Italian justice system.
In the early 80s, Nero was chosen for the role of the white ninja, "Cole", in Enter the Ninja (1981) and in 1990 as terrorist "Gen. Esperanza", opposite Bruce Willis, in Renny Harlin's Die Hard 2 (1990). He has also payed the roles of leading national heroes, such as "Garibaldi" (Italy), "Arpad" (Hungary), and "Banovic Strahinja" (Yugoslavia). In the USA, he has been in successful mini-series, such as "The Pirate" (Warner Bros), "The Last Days of Pompeii" (CBS), "Young Catherine" (TNT), "Bella Mafia" (CBS), "The Painted Lady", "Saint Augustine", and movies such as "The Legend of Valentino", "21 Hours to Munich", "Force 10 from Navarone", "Enter the Ninja", "The Versace Murder", and Letters to Juliet (2010).
He worked with the top European directors from Carlo Lizzani, Damiano Damiani, Luigi Zampa, Luis Buñuel, Elio Petri, Michael Cacoyannis, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Claude Chabrol, 'Vatroslav Mimica', Marco Bellocchio, etc. At the beginning of the 80s, he also began producing, writing and directing. Between films, he participates in various theatrical events.
Apart from his cinematographic work, Nero also works for charitable organizations. Over the last 45 years, he has been a benefactor of the Don Bosco orphanage in Tivoli. He has received many awards and, in 1992 for his artistic merits, a knighthood of the Italian Republic was bestowed on him by the President of Italy. In 2011, he was honored by Brunel University of London with the honorary degree of doctor of Letters honoris causa and, in Toronto, with a star on the Walk of Fame.