Celebrity Biographies
Bud Spencer
His appearance was impressive, as he was almost two meters tall and weighed about 140 kilos. He didn’t even consider himself an actor, but he succeeded on the screen, especially associated with Terence Hill. The well-known Bud Spencer died in Rome, at the age of 86, on Monday, June 27, 2016, “without suffering”, according to one of his sons, who assures that his last word has been “thank you ”.
Born on October 31, 1929, in Naples, Carlo Pedersoli began to study Chemistry, but because of the Second World War (“I suffered a lot because I had to live through the bombings”) he dropped out of university to move with his family to Buenos Aires ( Argentina), where he works as a librarian, and later to Montevideo (Uruguay), where he worked at the consulate of his country. Returning to Italy, he began his activity as a professional swimmer, winning the 100-meter freestyle national championship seven times, and being selected for the Helsinki (1952) and Melbourne (1956) Olympic Games, where he did not make it past the semifinals. “Even my friend Tarzan ( Johnny Weissmüller ) congratulated me several times. It was incredible, but I beat him, ”he recalled.
“I married my guardian angel,” she recalled. He was referring to the fact that in 1960 he married Maria Amato, with whom he had three children, Giuseppe, Christine and Diamante. His father-in-law, Giuseppe Amato, producer of La dolce vita , was the one who suggested that he dedicate himself to cinema when he finished his sporting activity, so to make a living he appeared as an extra, for the first time as a Roman guard in Quo Vadis , without credit in the titles, followed by A Farewell to Arms , where he was a carabiniere.
“I don’t have any talent as an actor”, he admitted, but the director Giuseppe Colizzi was in need of a giant for a role, and he couldn’t find anyone with his characteristics. “At first we didn’t agree on a financial issue, but they finally gave in and accepted because they couldn’t find anyone with my dimensions.” This is how he ended up as a counterpoint on screen for Terence Hill in God forgives… Not me! , although the director explained to him that in the harsh terrain of the spaghetti-western an actor could not be called Carlo Pedersoli, so he had to find a stage name. The Neapolitan thought that he liked the legendary Spencer Tracy , and Budweiser beer, so he was going to be known as Bud Spencer ..
The film did not do badly at the box office, so Colizzi himself paired him up with Hill again in two other similarly cut films, The Four Knaves and Boot Hill . But it was Enzo Barboni who turned them into an international phenomenon with They Called Him Trinidad , which was a first-rate international success. He played Bambino, sheriff of the town where Trinidad (Hill) ends up, one of the fastest gunmen in the west, who will help him defend a peaceful Mormon community. These western movies were shot in Almería, of which he kept many memories. “We had to catch a train from the capital that never passed. The people were extraordinary, magnificent, true, kind, sensible, nice, unique”.
They then began to switch genres, with the pirate film The Black Corsair , and the adventure film Stronger Boys , before the sequels to their best-known work, They Still Called Him Trinidad . Later, Hill would film a third installment without Spencer, titled And Then They Called Him the Magnificent . But the couple would repeat throughout the 70s and 80s in And if not, we get angry , Two missionaries , Two super-policemen , Evens and odds , I’m with the hippos , Whoever has a friend has a treasure , Two supersuper henchmen , two super two and Two superpolicemen in Miami , from 1985. In 1994, already aged, they would pay tribute to themselves with And on Christmas Eve… The Bethlehem was set up! , again in the western field, where Hill himself worked as a director.
Of increasingly worse quality, the truth is that they had a certain grace with priceless dialogues. “Are these natives cannibals,” he asked Hill. “I think so,” he replied. “Well, with me they will have had their illusions!” And of course, nobody can deny that they had their own style, based on a lack of blood and an abundance of laughter and blows. In 2010 they were awarded the honorary prize at the David di Donatello.
He came to be successful alone, with films in the same line, such as Banana Joe , or the unusual Aladdin , where he was a genie from the lamp who resorted to punching. At the end of his career, he shot a couple of titles in Spain, Al límite (1997), by Eduardo Campoy , and Hijos del viento (2000), by José Miguel Juárez. In his country, he even stood in the elections, along with Silvio Berlusconi, in 2005.