[Anthony Steffen authentic western hero all'italiana: the hero of 27films]
The Italian answer to Quentin Tarantino's film "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood", a sincere act of love for the beloved Italian B-movies, is a 531-page prequel novel set in the Roman dolce vita.
It was written by the director and screenwriter Manuel de Teffé, to retrace a page of the customs and culture of our country, opening the treasure chest of family memories.
His father Antonio de Teffé von Hoonholtz, aka Anthony Steffen, is the record-holder of spaghetti-westerns: 27 titles as a protagonist of the gold vein born in the wake of Sergio Leone's "A Fistful of Dollars" (1964).
An extraordinary epic, the one told in the book Once Upon a Time in Rome that finally puts back at the center a genre too often relegated to the margins. But that's not the only advantage.
Let's go back in time, when at our cinema the colts
smoked and the streets of the cities were colored by the maxi posters of Ringo,
Django, Sartana and Sabata.
[The writer of de Teffe, in the center with the white shirt, is also a teacher at the "Dbima Academy" of Parigi]
Manuel, how long did the love at first sight last between Cinecittà and the cowboy films?
"Roughly from 1965 to 1975, ten hectic years in which Italy produced about 500 spaghetti westerns before saturating the market."
The novel is inspired by the family and artistic history of your father Antonio, a Roman actor of noble Prussian origin, who died in 2004.
"A story that is in some ways unique. He was an aristocratic Shakespearean actor, with a robust theatrical background. And yet he managed to establish himself as the cowboy par excellence of the Italo-Western."
Can you tell us how (without spoiling the surprise for future readers of the book)?
"It's thanks to my mother. She was the one who had an original cowboy outfit shipped from the United States. Dad put it on, had his picture taken and sent 50 copies to the producers, introducing himself as Anthony Steffen, an American actor "temporarily in Rome" and willing to evaluate scripts. They all fell for it."
A stroke of genius from another time!
"The icing on the cake was to name Tonya Lemons, who lives at the Hilton Hotel in Rome, as his agent. At that time, without the internet and social media, who could have imagined that behind the pseudonym there was Antonella La Lomia, Steffen's girlfriend and my future mother, a brilliant woman. She was really at the Hilton, but as a PR manager. I forgot: the one who sent the cowboy outfit from the USA was the boxer Rocky Marciano, my mother's suitor at the time”.
Am I wrong to consider your novel a sort of prequel to "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood"?
“The transformation of Antonio de Teffé into Anthony Steffen takes place, in an ideal time-line, exactly 4 years before Tarantino's film set in 1969. Before the dialogue in which Brad Pitt invites Leonardo DiCaprio to go to Rome to try his hand at a career in Italian westerns.
Did Anthony Steffen dress up as a cowboy at the auditions?
"Of course! He was immediately signed by the
producers. When they found out that Steffen was the very Italian Baron de
Teffé, they couldn't help themselves."
[The cowboy Steffen; on the right, Manuel de Teffe with his wife Carola and the actor Gianni Garko]
So everything went smoothly?
"Not really, it turned out to be a little lie that Dad had told. He claimed to be able to ride without any problems, but that was not true. So he flew to Baden-Baden, Germany, to take riding lessons. He got lost in the Black Forest and was found by the rescue team coordinated by the mayor!"
Let's go back to your novel: how did the spark start?
"Before the lockdown I had written a western that was to be produced by the late Carlo Macchitella. The project was cancelled due to the pandemic, but it did not end up in the trash. He transformed, imagining the vicissitudes of an Italian crew on set in Almeria to shoot a spaghetti western. At that point the idea "exploded" in my hands. And I said to myself: Manuel, with this material I can narrate an unpublished page of our costume."
Did he go to the cinema to see his father's westerns?
"I've always seen them on TV, on cable channels they
were constantly on the air. Once, as a child, I was bored, and I called my dad
during dinner: "Something bad happens in your movies and you intervene to
complete the revenge". He thundered at me: "No one has understood,
shut up and eat!" Basically, I told him that his westerns were all the same."
[The novel by Manuel de Teffe]
And your favorite title among those played by Steffen?
"I'd say 'Django the Bastard', absolutely. Sergio Garrone's 1969 film that also inspired Clint Eastwood. Garrone was the director who most valued my father."
When did you re-evaluate your Dad's spaghetti westerns and the film genre in general?
"At the 2007 Venice Film Festival, the legendary
Tarantino paid homage to Garrone by screening "Una lunga fila di croci"
(No Room to Die) that Steffen shot in 1969. I had never seen my dad on the big
screen, it was love at first sight, a fundamental step to open the drawer of
memories. For the first time I saw the artist behind my father. So, I began to
appreciate the care taken in the editing, in the photography and in the scenes
of those films usually mistreated by official critics."
Did he ever go to his father's sets?
"Only once, when I was a kid. I slipped my hand into the case of a rattlesnake. I was saved by an actor who was a colleague of my dad's."
How was the novel "Once Upon a Time in Rome" received?
"I chose an independent publisher, 'Readaction', precisely to be able to write it without conditions. I am very satisfied; the presentations of the novel are always sold out. In Milan, the film historian Silvio Giobbio, author of "Matalo – Dictionary of Italian Western Films" (published by Bloodbuster, ed.) gave me a precious gift, certifying the European record of my father, 27 times protagonist in the films of this glorious trend».
Last week the novel was awarded in London at the Bond Street Awards. I think his father would have been proud....
"He gave everything to the cinema. He was even going blind, and do you know why? Because of the powerful spotlights that were shined into his very clear eyes to simulate the high sun of the Far West. The doctor, seeing the condition of his retina, advised him to stop. He took note of this and simply stopped. Like a true gentleman."
by Michele Borghi
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