Italian Film Star ‘Waiting Foe Call’

 

The Charlotte News

By Emery Wister

January 2, 1969

     There’s an Italian motion picture star visiting in Charlotte this week and his name is Peter Lee Lawrence. 

     Don’t laugh. He’s a native of Germany, citizen of the France, was educated in England and has the name and accent of an Englishman. He just happens to make his pictures in Italy,

     “Thirteen,” smiled the handsome lad who wears his blond hair in the long, modern style. “I was in a “A Few Dollars More” with Clint Eastwood but that was the only small role I played.” 

     Lawrence has starred in “A Few Bullets More” which played the Park Terrace Theater just before the current attraction “Bullitt” opened. Another of his movies “Killer Caliber .32”, is one of the biggest box office hits in Yokyo now.

     Lawrence is in Charlotte visiting his sister, Mrs. Karla Kennard, whose husband Steve sells securities for Bache & Co. here. And the new thing in movies, he says is war.

     “World War II,” he explains, “That’s the main thing now. The war pictures are the new Westerns, nationalistic Westerns I’d say.”

     LAWRENCE IS making his flicks in Europe because “I’m low budget. Vittorio Gassman is the big name in Italy. His movies cost 800 million lira. Me, I come in for 100 million but my first one cost only 60 million. I have the contacts in Hollywood but I’m waiting to be called.”

     Lawrence just completed a war picture in Italy with Guy Madison “Hell in Normandy” and a western with John Ireland, “A Pistol for 100 Coffins”.

     Lawrence is 24 and yes, he has been mobbed by admirers even as other players. .

     “They ripped my shirt off,” he says, “Yes, I’m single.”

     Not to long ago he starred in “Tempo de Charleston,” which is a Chicago gangster movie made in Madrid.

     “We did three versions,” he recalled, “One for Spain, one for Italy and one for U.S. The big difference is that we’re completely in the nude for the film shown here. And it will be shown in this country. I was just signed for the distribution rights.”

[Thanks to Mike Hauss for contributing this newspaper article.]