Sunday, August 18, 2019

George Hilton Obituary


George Hilton

“I am writing to all of you on behalf of Georgia Hilton, George's most important person in the world, her family in Uruguay, Canada and Belgium, and also on behalf of Georgia's mother and her dear loyal friends, to let us know that our beloved George has left us today. ” With these words his sentimental companion gave on Facebook July 28, 2019 the sad news of the death of George Hilton, one of the emblematic names of European cinema of the sixties and seventies, where he worked mainly within the spaghetti-western and the giallo film genres.

Born in Montevideo on July 16, 1934 under the name of Jorge Hill Acosta and Lara, George Hilton was a member of a wealthy family in the Uruguayan capital. Despite the family opposition, he was attracted to the world of film at a very young age, and finding in his hometown the Circular Theater Hall, which allowed him to train as an actor. Showing what was his motto, "the world is for the bold", in the absence of prospects offered by his country of origin he immigrated to Buenos Aires. Based in Argentina and participated under the pseudonym of Jorge Hilton, he achieved a certain popularity as a heartthrob in photonovelas, work that he combined with his appearances in television, theater and cinema. In 1956 he made his first film in a role of figurant, gradually achieving in his next work to play secondary roles.

It seemed that little by little George was working more and more in the profession. However, fleeing from a romantic relationship, in 1963 he left everything and landed in Italy, where again he had to start from scratch. Despite his lack of contacts and even knowledge of the language, the effervescence that lived in those moments of the Italian cinema, together with his photogenics, he soon managed to sign a contract to work on a film. As he himself would recognize a few years ago, "I was lucky to arrive at the right time". Thus, despite being a total stranger, he played the leading role in “The Masked Man Against Pirates” (L'uomo mascherato contro i pirati, 1964), a modest production of adventure to which he continued his career in two vehicles at the service of the Comic duo formed by Franco Franchi and Ciccio Ingrassia. The first was “Operation Lightning” (Due mafiosi contro Goldginger 1965), parody of the James Bond films in which he played Agent 007, and “The Two Sons of Ringo” (I due figli di Ringo (1976)), a film that did the same, in this case taking as a model the first successes harvested by the Spaghetti westerns.

George Hilton in "The Brute and the Beast"

Precisely, it was within this genre where George Hilton's career gave his definitive accolade thanks to his role as the alcoholic partner of the character embodied by Franco Nero in “The Brute and the Beast” (Le colt sang la morte e fu… tempo di massacro , 1966). With this role he drew the attention of the industry and the public, and even received the congratulations of no less than Michelangelo Antonioni, who would propose that he star in his film “The Reporter” (Professione: reporter, 1975), a possibility that would be rejected due to the opposition of the North American producers. However, after his appearance in “The Brute and the Beast” the Uruguayan actor, did not lack the contracts. On the contrary, at a time when the so-called Spaghetti western was in full swing, Hilton became one it’s most recurring protagonists of this particular star system, intervening in approximately twenty titles belonging to the genre in the decade following.

Among his contribution to the genre, it is worth mentioning his prolonged association with the director Giuliano Carnimeo, who allowed him to strengthen his comic visions in his incarnations of the main gunmen of Sell the gun and buy the grave (C'è Sartana ... sold the gun and bought la bara, 1970), and “Now they Call Him Hallelujah” (Testa t'ammazzo, croce ... I am dead ... My chiamano Alleluja, 1971) or For me gold, for you the lead (Lo chiamavano Tresette ... giocava semper col morto, 1973) . Of course, if there is a title that stands out in his filmography in the Euro-western, this is that of the magnificent “The Ruthless Four” (Ognuno per sé, 1968), in which George played one of his most successful roles, as a young Mexican who lives subjugated under the designs of a choleric individual in a messy outfit that has the hallucinated features of Klaus Kinski and with which he maintains a strange relationship of dependence, it would be said that of a homosexual nature.

George Hilton en “Las lágrimas de Jennifer” (Jennifer's Tears)

Along with the western, Hilton was also worked within the giallo. So much so that there are several major titles of this genre. We refer to his trio of collaborations with Sergio Martino in which he shared prominence with the sculptural Edwige Fenech, formed by the perverse “Mrs. Wardh” (Lo strano vizio della signora Wardh (1971), “The Tail of the Scorpion” (La coda dello scorpione - 1971) and “All the Colors of the Dark” (Tutti i colori del buio - 1972), to which it is possible to add “Bloody Summary of the Small Estefanía” (Mio caro assassino - 1972) of Tonino Valerii and the singular “L'assassino è costretto ad uccidere ancora” (1975) by Luigi Cozzi. Of all of them George kept a special memory of his character of Peter Lynch in “The tail of the Scorpion”, which he considered his best role, although he also had a bad moment by what happened during the post-production with the final scene of this film: “The death I do, which I loved, was cut off by Goffredo Lombardo [owner of the Titanus] because he said it was too long. I crawl in the sand, cough up blood ... because the actor's ego wants to show up. I remember that I got hot and I started to get fucking mad when they told me they were going to cut it ”, he commented years later.

George Hilton & Edwige Fenech in “La perversa señora Ward” (The Wicked Mrs. Ward)

There is no doubt that at that time George Hilton's career was at its best. However, around the middle of the seventies, Italian genre cinema began to decline and, with it, the Uruguayan star, stung by the gradual end of the production of the two genres in which he had specialized. Although at first he tried to reinvent his cinematographic image, in the case of “Sette ore di violenza per una unexpected solution” (1973), an action film directed by his brother-in-law, Michele Massimo Tarantini, who echoed the contemporary success of Karateka films, as the years went by, his cinematographic appearances began to be spaced over time, producing more and more modest products. To make matters worse, fate had given him a hard blow in the personal death of one of his daughter, which plunged the actor into a deep depression from which it would take much time to recover.

Still of George Hilton

Overcome by this mood, his last active years were developed in productions, usually with cathodic destiny, among which we can mention the TV movie of Lamberto Bava within the space ‘Brivido giallo’ “Dinner with the Vampire” (1989), where he would play Jurek, the bloodsucker to which the title refers. After a decade away from the sets, in 2019 Hilton once again put himself in front of the cameras in “La Promessa del Sicario”, a modest production currently pending release, and his name had been announced as one of the participants of “The Fourth Horseman”, the expected return of Keoma by Franco Nero & Enzo G. Castellari. A few weeks ago, George Hilton appeared in “Il mondo è degli audaci”, a documentary directed by the Brazilian filmmaker Daniel Camargo, which, through the testimony of family, friends and his own protagonist, reconstructs the personal and professional career of the Uruguayan actor.

Rest in peace.

José Luis Salvador Estébenez
 

 
 

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