RIP Tullio Moneta

 

Italian born actor Tullio Moneta passed away in the San Severino hospital in Macerata, Italy. He was 85. Born in Fiume, Italian Regency of Carnaro, Italy. He competed for a spot on the 1960 Italian Olympic track team as a shot putter. Knowing English and French, he found work for a French import-export company and, in 1961, he was sent to Sierra Leone, cruising the west coast from Senegal to Gabon. Then he moved to South Africa and started working in the cinema thanks to a series of lucky encounters. For a film he went to Congo, where there was war. At the end of 1964 he became bored with acting and enlisted as an interpreter for the national army of Congo. Working as a mercenary he dealt in intelligence, with missions in the Soviet Union, the Balkans, and the Middle East. After years of living in South Africa, where he has two children, he returned to Macerata in 2013. His health began to deteriorate, and he spent the last few years between one hospitalization and another until his ultimate passing. Moneta appeared in two Euro-westerns: Three Bullets... for a Long Gun – 1970 (Moses); They Call Me Lucky – 1973 (Diaz Almeida).