Met actress Annie Girardot on the set of Rocco and His Brothers (1960) and later married her. In sharp
contrast to their off-camera relationship, in the movie Salvatori
played a boxer-turned-thug who viciously rapes Annie, who played a
prostitute. They had a daughter Giulia, later separating but not
divorcing.
Came to acting by chance, when he was picked for his athletic good looks while working at a resort in Viareggio.
Italian multi purpose actor who started off handsomely as a romantic
juvenile actor but after working with the powerful likes of directors
Luchino Visconti, Roberto Rossellini, and Vittorio De Sica in the '60s, turned into one of Italy's strongest characters actors of grim, harrowing drama.