Join me at noon PST today for another episode of The
Spaghetti Westerns Podcast. Today we’ll be covering in out History of the Spaghetti
western, “Gunmen of the Rio Grande”. Then we’ll cover Whatever happened to Dean
Stratford and in our Who Are Those Guys? segment we’ll talk about Gerard Tichy.
Our film of the week is “The Dirty Outlaws” and The CD of the week will be “Gunmen
of the Rio Grande” and “El Desperado” and I’ll talk about composer Gianni
Ferrio. I’ll have an autograph of the week and some posters, Then we’ll wrap
things up with The News of the Week, so I hope to see you at high noon today.
Interesting fact about Dino Strano, AKA Dean Stratford. While working on a Spaghetti Western film with Klaus Kinski, Klaus reportedly screamed, "Italians, oh shit!" When Dino asked him, "What the hell do you mean, 'Italians, oh shit'?", Klaus was said that he had worked with Italians before and that they made him nervous. As far as I know, Dino Strano was probably born on February 11, 1933 or 1935 in Catania, Italy and may have died by September 30th of either 1983 or 2012 in either his native Catania or Rome. What I DO know is that he is/was an Italian-American actor who worked in Spaghetti Westerns. He is probably well known for his role as Mash Flannigan/Donovan in the 1971 Eurowestern, "Savage Guns'" with Robert Woods. Great actor.
ReplyDeleteQuick update. Back in February when I posted about Dino Strano, I said that he was probably born on February 11, 1933, or February 11, 1935, in Catania, Italy. I have now come to realize that this is NOT true. My theory is that he was born on March 15, 1936, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and was raised in Catania, Italy, with his parents. They often moved from state to state living in such places as New York, Texas, Colorado, California, Tennessee, Ohio, Kentucky, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, and Indiana. His older brother, Carl, appeared in most of his films and he worked with Klaus Kinski on the Italian Western, "Shoot The Living And Pray For The Dead" where he played the role of Reed. When Kinski first met him, he panicked and said "Holy shit, it's an Italian!" When Dino asked, "What are you talking about?", Kinski said that he once worked with an Italian actor and it made him nervous. So imagine working with an Italian-American actor like Dino Strano who HIMSELF could also be unpredictable. Dino often used the alias of Dean Stratford in his Westerns and rarely if ever had the lead role except for the two times he was in a Western. Those films were "His Colt, Himself, And His Revenge" from 1973 and "Seven Devils On Horseback" where played the role of Jeff McNeal that was made in 1972 but wasn't released until 1975 due to a low budget and a rewritten script. Dino may have been diagnosed with prostate cancer in 1998 which would probably explain why he hadn't been acting as often. He probably died on November 4, 2012, of prostate cancer at the age of 76 in Rome. Until this is corrected, this is all the information I have for now. Please don't be afraid to ask for verification as there is only so much that I myself can provide. Any help whatsoever would be deeply appreciated. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteI forgot to add that Dino Strano also spent more time in Italy then he did anywhere else, especially in Rome. My bad.
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