Il Brutto Cattivo Dagli Occhi Buoni [archived newspaper article]

 Discovered by Louis Malle who cast him in "Viva Maria", he is now one of Cinecitta's most sought-after character actors - From a wreck- a cyclops in the movies, to an evil strongman in the television "Carousels" - He built the character of - tough, but those who he know him say he has a heart of gold - He doesn't scare the kids either.

Radiocorriere

By Franco Rispoli

Rome, August, 1965

Nine months ago the latest model, Leda Muccini, died suddenly in Rome. She had posed for Guttuso, Cagli, Levi, Vespignani, also for Marcello Muccini who had been her husband, and for Alberto Sughi who was her brother. There was no one who was not her friend; it was impossible not to love Leda as she loved everyone. She pours those experiences of hers and those knowledge of hers into a book that has caused a sensation, revealing a true talent as a writer. In the first chapter she recalled her adolescence in Cesena and her first love, Poldo: ... not a great name, okay, but he was a very kind to the girl with a beautiful face, who had had smallpox as a child. that had left his skin all ruined, although then, since he was always very well-dressed in winter and summer, did not bother him much; but the rest, which had little value, was compensated by his face.

Such a provincial type was extraordinary, there was none to be seen; he studied at the University of Bologna and was always there, and for this reason he had that air that he had; he was elegant, transient yet casual.

So, thanks to Leda Mucini. Poldo - i.e. Leopoldo Bendandi, from Emilia Romagna transplanted to Rome - now also belongs to literature, as well as cinema, TV, and of course to gastronomy: because he also manages a restaurant behind Piazza del Popolo, and for this reason they call him an actor. As a host, you can afford to hug Brigitte Bardot on the threshold of his restaurant between the indulgent smiles of his wife Laura and the husband of the diva Gunther Sachs, as happened a few days ago; not so much the one hundred and thirty-five kilos of him, compared to the scarce fifty of BB, put him at the disposal of every suspicion. As an actor, he plays the role of a good giant in cinema, or a bad one - in the Carousels, where every ten days he is torn apart by a kind of wiry Batman. And even if he appears as a protagonist on television, and in a children's program, as happened to him last year on Czechoslovakian TV; or in an action-packed program, as happens to him this Friday in the sixth episode of Red Triangle.

However, the testimony of Leda Muccini tells us that in his youth he also knew how to interpret love parts. His already imposing bulk did not prevent him, nor did that story of smallpox prevent him, for the reasons set out above in quotation marks, not even that name prevented him, which - Leda was right - is not a great thing but from its parts, even in his family, worse could happen to him. His brother, who was a surgeon, was simply called Giuseppe. But his father was called Nullo, from the cognomen of the general of Garibaldi, because in Emilia-Romagna there has always been the craze, now in decline, of borrowing names from history, from anniversaries, or to load them with programmatic allusions, so that everything is clear from the presentations.

Thirty years have passed since Poldo was an extraordinary guy who studied in Bologna, elegant, unkempt? In his own way, he is still an extraordinary type, with the reasonable age limitations of the family, although this has served as an incentive at times.

[Poldo in the role of innkeeper on the threshold of his restaurant welcomes Bardot with him a warm embrace. The famous model Leda Muccini in a book described Bendandi as an extraordinary type]