Spaghetti Western Trivia ~ Italian actors in American TV shows

 

The Danny Thomas Show was entering its 10^th season (October 1962-April 1963), and need a new visual setting to work with.

The producers settled on having the lead character, entertainer Danny Williams (Danny Thomas) and his wife (Marjorie Lord), go on a European tour. First, they arrived in London, England, then Paris and finally Italy.

They divided up the Italian shoot between Rome and Venice. In Rome, the episode The Roman Patriot (#302, February 18, 1963), they had actor Massimo Serato, as what Danny thought was an Italian Gigolo, who takes a fancy to his bored wife.

While still in the Eternal City, the episode When in Rome (#305, March 11, 1963), had Umberto

Raho as a taxi driver.

Switching to Venice, the episode Venetian Melody (#308, April, 1st, 1963), has the happy couple helped by a hotel busboy played by Tony Brandt (who is also credited as the Italian assistant director, as he knew English), who recognizes him as a famous American actor.

Brandt would become Sergio Leone's long-suffering assistant on Duck You Sucker (October 1971), and later an assistant on Tonino Valerii's A Reason to Live, A Reason to Die (October 1972) and Monte Hellman's China 9, Liberty 37 (August 1978). All three films were shot in English as the primary language.

Back to Venetian Melody, plot wise, Danny meets a pintsized street urchin singer played by the talented 'Piccola Puppa' (the Little Doll), whose birth name was Giuliana Crimilde Coverlizza.

Playing her younger accordion-playing brother was Antonio Piretti (sometimes spelt Pieretti).

Piretti would later appear in Django Shoots First (October, 1966), this time as Erica Blanc's younger sibling. 'Puppa' would make many US tv appearances over the following years, and finally getting to perform in AIP's Ghost in the Invisible Bikini (April, 1966), and belts out the number "Stand Up and Fight". Soon after she retired, as most child performers do, later married and raised a family, having a son in 1973.

Piretti, on the other hand, continued on for another ten years until he also retired from acting.

The Danny Thomas Show, finished off the tenth season, and lurched into its last, and finally folded at the end of April, 1964, having amassing a staggering 343 episodes. Thomas would later resurrect his TV family on the short-lived Make Room for Granddaddy (September 1970-March 1971) before calling it a day.

 

By Mike Ferguson