Actores italianos
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Alvaro Vitali was born on 3 February 1950 in Rome, Lazio, Italy. He is an actor and writer, known for L'antenati tua e de Pierino (1996), Amarcord (1973) and Pierino torna a scuola (1990). He has been married to Stefania Corona since 2006.- Actor
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Giovanni Brass was born on 26 March 1933 into the family of a famous artist, Italico Brass, who was his grandfather. Italico gave his grandson a nickname "Tintoretto," which Giovanni later adapted into his cinematic name, Tinto Brass.
Tinto inherited his grandfather's artistic skills, but he applied them to film instead of canvas. When he joined the Italian film industry, he worked with such famous directors as Federico Fellini (his idol) and Roberto Rossellini. In 1963 he directed his first film, Chi lavora è perduto (In capo al mondo) (1963). Afterwards, he went on to make such avante garde art films as Attraction (1969) and L'urlo (1966). He was approached in 1976 to directed a sexploitation quickie, Madam Kitty (1976), but he wisely chose to have the script rewritten, turning it into a dark, political satire. The success of "Salon Kitty" lead Penthouse magazine publisher Bob Guccione to choose Brass to helm Caligula (1979), the big-budget adaption of Gore Vidal's novel "Caligula." Tinto finished shooting the film, but when he refused to convert it into the "flesh flick" that Guccione wanted it to be by including footage of Penthouse centerfolds making out and romping, he was fired and locked out of the editing room. He later disowned the film when he saw the botched editing (the film was spliced together amateurishly from outtakes and rehearsal footage) and Guccione's hardcore sex scenes spliced in with his work. Ironically, "Caligula" remains Tinto's most famous film. After it became a huge international box-office hit, Brass was hired to shoot a spy thriller Snack Bar Budapest (1988). Afterwards, he decided that he should focus on erotica, as a way to rebel against the hypocrisy of censors, explaining that sex is a normal part of life and we should just deal with it.
With his latest films Black Angel (2002) (an update of the classic novella "Senso") and the erotic comedy Fallo (1988), Brass cemented his reputation of an undisputed master of erotica and avante-garde art films.- Actor
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Renzo Montagnani was born on 11 September 1930 in Alessandria, Piedmont, Italy. He was an actor, known for When Women Had Tails (1970), When Women Lost Their Tails (1972) and The Betrothed (1989). He died on 22 May 1997 in Rome, Lazio, Italy.- 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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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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Mario Carotenuto was born on 30 June 1916 in Rome, Lazio, Italy. He was an actor and writer, known for The Scopone Game (1972), Satyricon (1969) and Scandal in Sorrento (1955). He was married to Luisa Poselli and Gabriella Cotignoli. He died on 14 April 1995 in Rome, Lazio, Italy.- Actor
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Riccardo Pizzuti was born on 28 May 1934 in Cetraro, Calabria, Italy. He is an actor and assistant director, known for Uno sceriffo extraterrestre... poco extra e molto terrestre (1979), Crime Busters (1977) and Lady Frankenstein (1971).- Actor
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Boldi was born in Luino on 23 July 1945. In 1955 his family moved to Milan, where he joined evening classes and began working as a window-dresser and then as a door-to-door salesman for a pastry company. In 1968 he started performing in cabaret. In the 1970s he did not perform, but managed a bar-latteria in Milan. On September 29, 1973, he married Marisa Selo (cousin of Formula One driver Michele Alboreto). Their marriage lasted until Selo's death on April 8, 2004.- Actor
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Francesco 'Nino' Castelnuovo was born to humble beginnings in Lombardy, the second of four brothers. His working life began with a series of stints in various jobs, including house painting, as a mechanic and as a sales agent, after which he decided to take drama classes at the Piccolo Teatro in Milan. A first screen appearance in 1957 was followed by a motion picture debut two years later. He had a small supporting part in Luchino Visconti's Rocco and His Brothers (1960), but his career only gained traction with a co-starring role opposite Catherine Deneuve in the romantic musical drama The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964) (though his scenes were subsequently re-dubbed). Castelnuovo's greatest popularity came via the small screen, as Renzo Tramaglino, key protagonist of the mini-series I promessi sposi (1967), a period piece set during the Spanish occupation of Lombardy in the 17th century and based on a best-selling novel by Alessandro Manzoni. Other appearances have included both American and Italian-produced westerns (The Reward (1965), The 5-Man Army (1969)) among notably cosmopolitan casts. By the early 70s, Castelnuovo acted primarily on stage, in serial television and was seen for several years in commercials for Olio Cuore, a corn oil company. His final fling on the international scene was a small role in [The English Patient (1996)] as an archaeologist, recalled in flashback scenes by the lead character Almásy. Castelnuovo retired in 2016. He was married to the actress Danila Trebbi.- Actor
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Fabio De Luigi is one of the most successful comic actors of the last years in Italy. His success began when he entered in the cast of the comic show of the Gialappa's Band. Then, he gave life to some funny and now famous characters such as the proud actor Orso Maria Wilson, the little detestable Maiuscolo but most of all, the singer Olmo. "Olmo & friends" the first CD published by the comic has been one of the best sellers of this season.- Actor
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Born in Milan in 1933, Gian Maria Volontè studied in Rome at the National Dramatic Arts Academy, where he obtained his degree in 1957. He began working in theatre and television, where he was soon noticed as one of the most promising actors of his generation. After several supporting appearances in film, he reached notoriety with the character of Ramón Rojo in Sergio Leone's A Fistful of Dollars (1964). This success was doubled in Leone's next film, For a Few Dollars More (1965). The following ten years would be the most intense of Volontè career. L'armata Brancaleone (1966) (directed by Mario Monicelli) was the most successful Italian movie of the year, We Still Kill the Old Way (1967) (directed by Elio Petri) won the Grand Prix du Scenario at the Cannes Film Festival, and Volontè won his first Nastro d'Argento (Silver Ribbon - the most prestigious acting award in Italy) in 1970 for Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion (1970) (also directed by Petri), making him an international star. The film won the Academy Award for Best Foreign-Language Film, the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival and two Italian Golden Globes, including one for his performance. In 1972, he starred in two Italian movies as the protagonist: Petri's The Working Class Goes to Heaven (1971) and Francesco Rosi's The Mattei Affair (1972), both of which won the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival, where he also won a Special Mention. In his life, Volontè won a huge number of other prizes and honours, becoming one of the most celebrated Italian actors of the seventies, and challenging Vittorio Gassman and Marcello Mastroianni as the most popular Italian actor. He died in Greece in 1994.- Angelo Pellegrino was born on 2 August 1946 in Palermo, Sicily, Italy. He is an actor, known for Malena (2000), 1900 (1976) and Vacanze di Natale '95 (1995). He was previously married to Goliarda Sapienza.
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Carlo Verdone is considered by many the heir of Alberto Sordi, expecially when they acted together in Troppo forte and In viaggio con papa', in these films many similarities with Sordi were apparent, the popular language, the romanesco, and the embodiment of Italian middle man in the '80s that Sordi did in the '50s and '60s.
In the last ten years Verdone has shown in his films the anguishes and the neurosis of Italian modern man. He is the brother-in-law of Christian de Sica. His father is an appreciated university Italian professor in cinema history.- Actor
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Silvio Orlando was born on 30 June 1957 in Naples, Campania, Italy. He is an actor and writer, known for The Caiman (2006), Il posto dell'anima (2003) and The Inner Cage (2021). He has been married to Maria Laura Rondanini since 7 October 2008.- 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.- Raf Vallone was an internationally acclaimed Italian movie star known for his rugged good looks. The athletic Vallone, a former soccer player who often was compared to Burt Lancaster, was born Raffaele Vallone in 1916 in Tropea in Calabria, Italy, the son of a prominent lawyer and his aristocratic wife. At the University of Turin, Vallone took degrees in law and philosophy and then entered his father's law firm.
Vallone played semi-professional soccer but never realized his dream of becoming a professional athlete. Subsequently, he became a sports reporter for L'Unita, a communist newspaper, and also a drama critic for La Stampa. During World War II, Vallone served with the anti-Fascist resistance.
His first job as a movie actor was a bit part in We the Living (1942) (aka, "We the Living"), but Vallone was not serious about acting as a career. Hired as a researcher on a film about labor unrest, director Giuseppe De Santis cast Vallone as a soldier competing with Vittorio Gassman for the love of Silvana Mangano in what became the neo-realist classic Bitter Rice (1949) ("Bitter Rice"). The film propelled Vallone, pronounced a natural actor by De Santis, into international stardom and ended his journalism career.
Vallone became a major star in Italy in the 1950s and then a player in the global film industry, making movies in Italian, French and English. Vallone achieved popularity with American audiences in the 1960s, starting with his supporting roles in Two Women (1960) ("Two Women") and El Cid (1961), both co-starring Sophia Loren. Other major actresses he co-starred with on film and stage included Gina Lollobrigida, Anna Magnani, Melina Mercouri, Simone Signoret, and Elena Varzi, to whom he was married for 52 years, until his death in 2002.
Vallone's first "American" role was as the incest-minded Italian-American longshoreman Eddie Carbone in Sidney Lumet's film of Arthur Miller's A View from the Bridge (1962) ("A View from the Bridge"). Other prominent roles in American films included Otto Preminger's The Cardinal (1963), Roger Corman's The Secret Invasion (1964), Harlow (1965) starring Carroll Baker, and Henry Hathaway's Nevada Smith (1966).
Vallone played many priests during his long career, culminating with the cardinal-confessor of mobster Michael Corleone, a priest who becomes pope and is murdered in Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather Part III (1990). Appearing for the other side, Vallone was memorable as the Mafia boss Altabani in the original The Italian Job (1969). - Actor
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Marcello Mastroianni was born in Fontana Liri, Italy in 1924, but soon his family moved to Turin and then Rome. During WW2 he was sent to a German prison camp, but he managed to escape and hide in Venice. He debuted in films as an extra in Marionette (1939), then started working for the Italian department of "Eagle Lion Films" in Rome and joined a drama club, where he was discovered by director Luchino Visconti. In 1957 Visconti gave him the starring part in his Fyodor Dostoevsky adaptation White Nights (1957) and in 1958 he was fine as a little thief in Mario Monicelli's comedy Big Deal on Madonna Street (1958). But his real breakthrough came in 1960, when Federico Fellini cast him as an attractive, weary-eyed journalist of the Rome jet-set in La Dolce Vita (1960); that film was the genesis of his "Latin lover" persona, which Mastroianni himself often denied by accepting parts of passive and sensitive men. He would again work with Fellini in several major films, like the exquisite 8½ (1963) (as a movie director who finds himself at a point of crisis) and the touching Ginger & Fred (1986) (as an old entertainer who appears in a TV show). He also appeared as a tired novelist with marital problems in Michelangelo Antonioni's La Notte (1961), as an impotent young man in Mauro Bolognini's Bell' Antonio (1960) , as an exiled prince in John Boorman's Leo the Last (1970), as a traitor in Paolo and Vittorio Taviani's Allonsanfan (1974) and as a sensitive homosexual in love with a housewife in Ettore Scola's A Special Day (1977). He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor three times, for Divorce Italian Style (1961), A Special Day (1977), and Oci ciornie (1987). During the last decade of his life he worked with directors, like Theodoros Angelopoulos, Bertrand Blier and Raúl Ruiz, who gave him three excellent parts in Three Lives and Only One Death (1996). He died of pancreatic cancer in 1996.- Actor
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As a teenager, Coiro, a talented visual artist, spent summers building sets and operating lights at the New Jersey Shakespeare Festival. Inspired by numerous productions, including Julie Taymor's "Titus Andronicus" at Theater For A New Audience, Coiro decided to study theater at Carnegie Mellon University, where he eventually graduated with a BFA. He also spent time studying at The Moscow Art Theater in Russia. Coiro got his first professional gig as an understudy to three roles in the American premiere of Conor McPherson's off-Broadway play "This Lime Tree Bower" directed by Harris Yulin at Primary Stages. Within a month of graduating from CMU, Coiro landed the role of Eddie the Bellhop in the Lincoln Center revival of George S. Kauffman's "Dinner at Eight", directed by the late Gerald Gutierrez. Coiro then moved to Los Angeles and began working in construction, including a stint building a house with Nick Offerman. As recounted on Jerry Ferrara's podcast "Bad 4 Business", Coiro received the call that he'd landed his first on-screen acting gig, as Billy Walsh on "Entourage", while digging a hole for a deck in Echo Park. The role of Walsh was originally meant to be a guest star but soon evolved into an iconic character that has defined Coiro's career.- Actor
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First of four brothers, he was discovered by Eduardo De Filippo when he was a post office clerk. In reality, according to the testimony of a former colleague still living, he was employed at the Military Hospital of Naples. Exponent of the Neapolitan theater, actor with ironic and comic verve, skilled character actor, he trod the stages together with Eduardo De Filippo and Aldo Giuffré.- Actor
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Sprouse was born August 4, 1992, in Arezzo, Tuscany, Italy, to American parents, Melanie (Wright) and Matthew Sprouse. Dylan and his younger identical twin Cole Sprouse were raised in their parents' Long Beach, California. He has acted from the age of six months, initially with Cole, and continues to do so out of his new home base of NYC after receiving his bachelors degree from NYU. Along with acting, Dylan owns a meadery and bar in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, serving as the master brewer of the business.- Actor
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He was born in the Apulian city of Andria and at the age of three, moved to Canosa di Puglia. Lino Banfi became one of the most well-known actors in Italian "sexy comedies" in the 1970s. In the 1980s he reached the peak of his fame by appearing in movies such as "L'allenatore nel pallone", "Vieni avanti cretino", "Il commissario Lo Gatto" and "Occhio, "Malocchio, prezzemolo e finocchio"; he recently portrayed Grandpa Libero in Italian TV series "Un medico in famiglia". During his career nearly all of Lino Banfi's characters spoke with the distinctive pronunciation of the Bari dialect. Lino and his wife Lucia have been married since 1962 and have two children, Walter and Rosanna; Rosanna is also an actress. In 2000, Lino Banfi became a Goodwill Ambassador for the Italian National Committee for UNICEF.- Actor
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Roberto Benigni was born on 27 October 1952 in Manciano La Misericordia, Castiglion Fiorentino, Tuscany, Italy. He is an actor and writer, known for Life Is Beautiful (1997), The Tiger and the Snow (2005) and Down by Law (1986). He has been married to Nicoletta Braschi since 26 December 1991.- Actor
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Pierfrancesco Favino was born on 24 August 1969 in Rome, Lazio, Italy. He is an actor and producer, known for World War Z (2013), Rush (2013) and Angels & Demons (2009).- 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.