Happy 80th Birthay Ornella Vanoni

Ornella Vanoni was born on September 22, 1934 in Milan, Lombardy, Italy. She started her artistic career in 1960 as a theatrical actress of Bertolt Brecht works, under the direction of Giorgio Strehler in his Piccolo Teatro of Milan. At the same time, she started singing, recording for a high-class public. The folklore and popular songs she reinvented in her recordings of this period, especially the ones connected with organized crime, gave her the nickname cantante della mala ("Underworld Singer").

 

Owing to the songs "Senza fine" and "Che cosa c'è" written for her by Gino Paoli, her popularity rose in 1963. Next year, she won the Festival of Neapolitan song with "Tu si na cosa grande".

 

In the following years, she took part in a series of Festivals of Italian Song in Sanremo, which resulted in great successes with the songs; "Abbracciami forte" (1965), "Io ti darò di più" (1966), "La musica è finita" (1967), "Casa bianca" (1968), and "Eternità" (1970). "Casa Bianca", which came second, was the subject of a copyright dispute between the composer Don Backy and the Clan Celentano label.

 

Later in the period, Vanoni released the hits "Una ragione di più", "Un'ora sola ti vorrei", and "L'appuntamento". The Swinging Blue Jeans carried Vanoni's song "Non Dirmi Niente" to the U.K. chart under the English title "Don't Make Me Over". "L'appuntamento", which was composed in 1970, is a cover of the Brazilian song "Sentado à Beira do Caminho" (Sitting by the Roadside) by Erasmo Carlos and Roberto Carlos.

 

In 1976, Vanoni cooperated with Vinicius de Moraes and Toquinho releasing the hit "La voglia, la pazzia, l'incoscienza e l'allegria". During the 1980s, she released "Ricetta di donna", "Uomini", and "Ti lascio una canzone" (a duet with Gino Paoli). In 1989, she returned to Sanremo Festival with the song "Io come farò". In 1999, she recorded "Alberi", a duet with Enzo Gragnaniello. She was mostly active performing live and as a guest singer in recordings. In 2004, she released a duo album with Gino Paoli to celebrate her 70th birthday.

 

In addition to her singing career, Ornella Vanoni was active in other arts, starring in stage and TV shows, movies, and posing nude for the Italian edition of Playboy magazine. The inclusion of her former hit "L'Appuntamento" (1970) on the Ocean's Twelve soundtrack sparked a worldwide renewal of interest in Ornella Vanoni.

 

Ornella appeared in only one Euro-western; “A Fistful of Songs”, (1966) as a singer.

 

Today we celebrate Ornella Vanoni’s 80^th birthday.

Remembering Alfredo Adami

Alfredo Adami was born Vulzinio Adami on September 2, 1914 in Supino, Lazio, Italy. Artistically born in the Theatre romanesco , working in its infancy with big names like Gustavo Cacini; Comedian and vaudeville revue between the 1940s and 1960s he was also a stage comedian, with his company magazine " Spettacoli Rosa", a large number of productions, with some being very successful. He was considered by critics to be a very talented comedian, winning the Hector Petrolini prize in the 1950s dedicated to Roman comic.

Thin and tall he finally appeared in the world of the cinema when he was no longer young, debuting in the film “Adua e le compagne”, ( 1960 ), directed by Antonio Pietrangeli .

He made several appearances in major Italian films, including “Roma”, (1972), by Federico Fellini, “Fantozz”, (1975), by Luciano Salce and “Polvere di stella”, (1973), with Alberto Sordi, and in many genre films of the 1970s. He appeared in only one Euro-western; “The Handsome, the Ugly and the Stupid” in 1967.

Adami died in Rome on August 2, 1989 of heart failure and emphysema.

Today we remember Alfred Adami on what would have been his 100^th birthday.

Spaghetti Western Locations

We continue our search for film locations for “Texas Adios” (aka The Avenger). After helping Fernandez rout Delgado’s men in an ambush. He rides off to ret Jim back at Cisco’s hacienda. Pedro and a few of his men give chase. Burt rides across prairie and sand dunes with Pedro and his men in hot pursuit.

 

 

This location is in Cabo de Gata and were the same dunes seen in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly where Tuco and Blondie find the carriage of the spirits. Little is left of the dunes today as time and the wind have blown much of them away.

 

For a more detailed view of this site and other Spaghetti Western locations please visit my friend Yoshi Yasuda’s location site: http://y-yasuda.net/film-location.htm

WANTED

Wanted - Italian title

Un sheriff a abattre - French title

Le recherche - French title

Für drei lumpige Dollar - German title

O perseguido - Portuguese title

Wanted... no soy un asesino - Spanish title

Wanted - desperados för dollar - Swedish title

Wanted - English title

 

A 1967 Italian production [Documento Film (Rome)]

Producer: Gianni Hecht Lucari

Director: Calvin J. Padget (Giorgio Ferroni)

Story: Massimiliano Capriccioli, Augusto Finocchi

Screenplay: Remigio Del Grosso, Fernando Di Leo, Augusto Finocchi

Cinematography: Toni Secchi (Antonio Secchi) [Eastmancolor, CinemaScope]

Music: Gianni Ferrio

Song: “When You Are Wanted” sung by I Cantori Moderni

Running time: 107 minutes

 

Cast:

Gary Ryan - Giuliano Gemma

Evelyn Baker - Teresa Gimpera

Frank Lloyd - Serge Marquand

Martin Heywood - German Cobos

Gold - Daniele Vargas (Daniele Pitani)

Cheryl - Gia Sandri

Padre Carmelo - Nello Pazzafini (Giovanni Pazzafini)

Ellis - Tullio Altamura

Cuzack - Franco Balducci

Judge Anderson - Carlo Hinterman

Old Indian farmer - Carlo Pisacane

Indian villager – Albercia Donadeo

Concho Diaz - Umberto Raho

Diaz henchmen - Simón Arriaga, Piero Capanna (Pietro Capanna),

William ‘Billy’ Baker - Benito Stefanelli

Collins - Pietro Tordi

Lloyd henchmen - Riccardo Pizzuti, Luigi Ciavarro, Fino Marturano, Lucio De Santis

Jeremiah Prescott – Furio Menicone

Julie Prescott – Rosella Orr

Saloon patrons – Osiride Pevarello, Renzo Pevarello

Poker player – Andrea Fantasia

Gold transport guard - Ivan Scratuglia

Barman – Fortunato Arena

With: Marco Bogliani, Nino Vingelli

Stunts: Alberto Dell’Acqua

 

Gary Ryan is appointed the sheriff of a small town where there is reason to suspect that some shady individual operates in the shadows at the expense of the peaceful community. Ryan is attacked during his trip. Arrived in town he takes possession of his office, but before he can get settled he falls victim to a plot and is accused of killing an unarmed man. Despite the confidence of the District Judge, Ryan is forced to flee, now with a $5,000 reward on his head. He intends to find proof of his innocence an find the guilty men Frank Lloyd the aspiring sheriff, and Gold, the corrupt mayor of the city. Despite the difficulties from being an outlaw, Ryan manages, with the help of Father Carmelo and Evelyn, to discover the system devised by the two thugs and their gang to steal the cattle of others with impunity. It is a branding iron with which all the marks of the owners of the area are changed in order to cover the thefts. But once again, Lloyd seems to have the best and David Ryan has to kill them one by one before presenting the evidence to prove his innocence and find the love of Evelyn.
 
YouTube trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXRRDv3Kcds

Remembering Sandro Ruffini

Alessandro ‘Sandro’ Ruffini was born on September 21, 1889 in Rome, Lazio, Italy. He began his acting career giving recitations with Ettore Paladini, Virgilio Talli and Forzano, before founding his own company with Ricci, Beltramo and Tricerri.

 

Among his best stage performances, Friar Lawrence in “Romeo and Juliet” (1948) directed by Simoni, Cassius in “Julius Caesar” (1949) staged by Salvini and Squarzina and “Henry IV” (1959) in the homonymous tragedy by Shakespeare directed by Strehler.

 

Defined by Ruggeri as one of the best Italian actors, he was gifted with a beautiful voice, which made ​​him one of the busiest voice actors of the 1930s and 1940s (he was the refined voice of Leslie Howard in “Gone with the Wind” and Charlie Chaplin in “Limelight”) and an acclaimed radio actor. He carried out the work as a voice actor until the early 1950s.

 

He was a member of the First Company of the radio drama EIAR in 1932, in Rome. He was directed by all the greatest directors of the radio era, from Majano in Morandi, by Taricco Masserano to Pavolini, and performed an extensive list of repertoire classics.

 

In 1953 he was the protagonist in a series of weekly episodes of Sherlock Holmes, the investigator in “The Investigation of Arthur Conan Doyle” directed by Anton Giulio Majano.

 

He was also the star of the radio series “The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes” (1953) and lent his voice to some documentary radio as well as poetry readings. Among his last interpretations on radio, “Don Juan Tenorio” by Zorrilla and Moral and “Waiting for Godot” by Beckett (1954).

 

Sandro appeared in a silent Euro-western: “The Whirl of Destiny” in 1913 playing Count Alberto Ortensi.

 

Ruffini died in November 29, 1954 from cerebral thrombosis.

 

Today we remember Sandro Ruffini on what would have been his 115^th birthday.

Happy 80th Birthday Sofia Scicolone

Sofia Villani Scicolone was born on September 20, 1934 in Rome, Lazio, Italy. Sophia Loren was born in a hospital charity ward, and raised in poverty by her single mother. Her father was married to another woman, and refused to adopt his illegitimate daughter, but did allow her to take his surname. As a girl, she was so thin she was taunted and nicknamed 'Stuzzicadenti' -- 'Toothpick'.

 

By 14, though, she won "Princess of the Sea" honors in a beauty pageant. By 15 she was working as a model, and met producer Carlo Ponti, who was one of the judges in a pageant she won. He hired an acting coach to tutor her, and at 16 she was in her first film, “Le Sei Mogli di Barbablù”. At 17 Ponti cast her in her breakthrough role as the commoner who caught the prince's eye in the filmed opera “La Favorita”. The next year she played the lead in a film of “Aida”, but in both opera films her songs were dubbed by better singers.

 

Loren quickly became a major star and pin-up girl in Italy, and her first film to find success beyond her native land was “La Donna del Fiume”, released in America as “The River Girl”. Her first English-language film was “Boy on a Dolphin” with Alan Ladd in 1957, where she was memorable mostly for emerging from the water in a wet, skin-tight, transparent dress. She starred in numerous American films through the rest of that decade, but most were received lukewarmly at best. In 1960 she returned to Italy to star in the brutal wartime drama “La Ciociara” (“Two Women”) with Jean-Paul Belmondo. She won the Best Actress Oscar for her performance -- the first Academy Award ever given for a performance not in English -- but Loren had been unable to attend and no-one from the Academy called to tell her she had won. She found out the following morning, when Cary Grant, an ex-lover and Loren's co-star in “Houseboat”, called to offer his congratulations.

 

Through the 1960s and 1970s, Loren worked in both European and American projects. Her best Italian films include “Una Giornata Particolare” (“One Particular Day”) with Loren as a bored housewife and Marcello Mastroianni as her gay acquaintance as Hitler comes to town, “Matrimonio all'Italiana” (“Marriage Italian Style”) with Loren as the hooker who lures Mastroianni into marriage, and “L' Oro di Napoli” (“The Gold of Napoli”), with Loren as a pizza-maker who loses her wedding ring.

 

Despite her va-va-va-voom image, her American work rarely attracted more than minimal box office. She sought vengeance against her lover Charlton Heston after he killed her father in “El Cid”, and she played the luscious double agent rescued by Gregory Peck in “Arabesque”, the jinxed girl who welcomed tugboat captain William Holden in “The Key”, and the whore idolized by Peter O'Toole in “Man of La Mancha”.

 

It was controversial in her native Italy when Loren married her mentor Carlo Ponti in 1957. Not only was he 45 to her 23, but he had been married previously, and neither the Catholic Church nor Italian government recognized his Mexican divorce. Ponti was charged with bigamy, but the charges were dropped when she had their marriage annulled. They continued living together -- scandalous at the time -- and remarried after his legal problems had been cleared. Still happily married, Ponti and Loren made three dozen films together, and they may have consciously struck back with their “Ieri, Oggi, Domani”, a 1963 comedy that poked fun at a Catholic priest and gently mocked Italian law on birth control.

 

Still beautiful at 72, she posed for the 2007 Pirelli calendar -- not as a stunt or as part of a senior citizens collection, but alongside models and movie stars half her age, including Penelope Cruz, Hilary Swank, and Naomi Watts.

 

Loren's sister, Anna Maria Scicolone, was married to Romano Mussolini, whose father was Italy's fascist dictator Benito Mussolini. Their daughter, Loren's niece, Alessandra Mussolini, was elected to the Italian Parliament as a neo-Fascist in 1992.

 

Credited under her real name Sofia Scicolone she appeared in two Euro-westerns: “The Dream of Zorro” (1951) as Conchita and “The Return of Pancho Villa” (1950) as a secretary.

 

Today we celebrate one of the true icons and living legends in the films industry Sofia Scicolone aka Sofia Loren on her 80^th birthday.

Remembering Hans von Borsody

Hans Eduard Herbert von Borsody was born on September 20, 1929 in Vienna, Austria. Hans von Borsody came from a family of artists. His father was film director Eduard von Borsody [1898-1970], his mother Maria Hochreiter was a violinist and his uncle was art director, production designer Julius von Borsody [1892-1960]. Due to the profession of his father, he was living in Berlin, where he and his family became the German nationals. During World War II, they returned to Vienna because of the increased bombing raids on Berlin.

 

After studying photography and graduating Borsody initially worked one year at the Graphic Training and Research Institute in Vienna, before he graduated, from 1950 to 1952, he studied acting at the Max Reinhardt Seminar. After that, he was a much sought-after and popular as a public performer in the films of the 1950s, but since then he’s played again and again in the theater. His favorite was the role of Cyrano de Bergerac, which was play by von Borsody in Vienna and Andernach.

 

From 1960, he was seen also increasingly in international film productions. One of his most memorable roles was that of the detective Cliff Dexter in the crime series ZDF from 1966 to 1968. Hans appeared in one Euro-western: “Buffalo Bill, Hero of the Far West” (1964) as Captain George Hunter.

 

In the 1970s, Hans was rarely seen in movies; he was outstanding in the cast of Richard Attenborough's historical war film “A Bridge Too Far” (1977). From 1980, he took over more and more frequently guest roles in television series such as ‘Die glückliche Familie’, ‘Forsthaus Falkenau’, ‘Klinik unter Palmen’ and ‘Der Bulle von Tölz’.

 

As a voice actor he lent his voice to among others Daniel Gélin (“Carthage in Flames”) and Douglas Sheehan in the soap opera ‘Knots Landing’.

 

Hans died on November 4, 2013 in Kiel, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany.

 

Today we remember Hans von Borsody on what would have been his 85^th birthday.