Born Roger Neal Francke on August 8, 1934 in Vernal,
Utah. He acted under the alias Robert Mark and sang under the alias Rodd Dana.
He is the nephew of musician Edythe Neal Cutright [1909-1996]. He studied at
UCLA and the Pasadena Playhouse. He then went on to appear in several TV
commercials, appeared in some TV series and had some parts in low-budget movies
like “War of the Colossal Beast” and “How to Make a Monster” (both 1958). He
decided to leave show business travel to Rome and study medicine. After a year
he became disillusioned with medicine and since he was already making
commercials for Italian TV to make ends meet and found work at Cinecitta and
was cast as a soldier in “Cleopatra” (1963). With the money he earned he
decided to study opera. This led to his singing career and as Rodd Dan he sang
the main theme song “The Cow-Boy Song” for “Massacre at the Grande Canyon. As
Robert Mark he starred in two Euro-westerns: “Kill or be Killed” (1966) “Kill
the Wicked” (1967). While in Rome he also became involved in film dubbing and
has several Euro-western credits such as the English voice of Edd Byrnes in
“Any Gun Can Play” (1967).
Rodd/Robert and his wife Margaret live in Utah.
Today we celebrate Rodd Dana’s/Robert Mark’s 80th
birthday.
I'll bet he's had an interesting life.
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