Remembering Franco Castellano

Franco Castellano was born on June 20, 1925 in Rome, Italy. Franco became one half of the immensely popular Castellano/Pipolo filmmaking partnership that took Italy by storm in the 1980s. Their collaboration began with their 1963 debut film “I marziani hanno dodici mani”. Castellano and Pipolo (who was born Giuseppe Moccia [1933-2006]) would go on to alternate writing and directing duties for the rest of their careers. While frequently receiving bad reviews from the Italian critics, Castellano and Pipolo were nevertheless very popular with the vast majority of the Italian moviegoing public and as a result had five of the top 100 grossing films in Italian history, with two of those films in the Top Ten. Castellano and Pipolo wrote three Euro-westerns: “Bullets Don't Argue” (1964), “They Call Me Providence” (1972) and “Another Try, Eh Providence” (1973) Franco died on December 28, 1999 in Rome from lung cancer, at the age of 74. Castellano sometimes used the alias Frank Forester. Today we remember Franco Castellano on what would have been his 85th birthday.