Franco Nero

He is known above all for embodying strong-willed types, often chops and hard as flint, and certainly with bad tempers. Sometimes he is the good guy in the movie, but he knows very well how to manage as the bad guy on duty. Throughout his long career, Franco Nero has worked on products of all kinds, some of good quality and others of cheap production and very little depth, usually of Italian nationality. However, that has not prevented him throughout his life from placing himself under the orders of highly prestigious directors such as John Huston , Joshua Logan , Luis Buñuel or RW Fassbinder .

His real name is Francesco Spanero and he was born on November 23, 1941 in Parma (Italy). He was the son of a police sergeant and received a strict upbringing. He studied Accounting at the University of Milan, but the world of the scene attracted him, so during that time he began to appear in some fotonovelas. He soon entered the Piccolo Teatro di Milano. His debut took place in Pelle viva (1962), a film starring Elsa Martinelli and where Nero was a simple extra. In 1965 he landed a larger role in Carlo Lizzani ‘s comedy La celestina P… R… and that same year he began to make a name for himself in the spaghetti western thanks toThe North Texas Guns , where Joseph Cotten performed . And the following year he landed his first leading role inDjango , directed by Sergio Corbucci , a filmmaker who did his best as a tough gunslinger in several films, includingSalary to Kill (1968), one of the couple’s best works, as well as The Companions (1970), where Nero was accompanied by Tomas Milian .

In 1966, the great John Huston gave her a leading role in his monumental filmThe Bible (in its beginning) , where the actor played Abel, while Richard Harris was Cain. He coincided with this Irish actor again the following year in one of the most original and prestigious musicals ever made:Camelot by Joshua Logan. Nero played Lancelot, who famously fell in love with Guinevere, who was played by Vanessa Redgrave . Things went from fiction to reality, since Nero and Redgrave fell in love and were a couple for years, so that the actor and director Carlo Nero was born from that relationship. Over time he had different relationships and even another son with a A different woman, but the funny thing is that the love between Franco and Vanessa never ended, to the point that they both got married in 2006.

He returned to his fetish genre in 1967 with Adiós, Texas , a Spanish-Italian co-produced spaghetti western, and the following year with El hombre, el orde y venganza . But that year her great role was that of Captain Bollodi inThe day of the owl , a hard thriller where Nero was in the company of the incomparable Claudia Cardinale . Both won the David de Donatello award for their work. The film was directed by Damiano Damiani , who in 1971 would triumph again with Nero inConfessions of a commissioner to an investigating judge . The war film dates from that time.The Battle of the Neretva River (1969), where he worked with Yul Brynner and Orson Welles , and especially the mythicalTristana (1970), with Catherine Deneuve and directed by Luis Buñuel. But Nero was more into movies with more action and intrigue, where he could give more free rein to his style, films likeThe black day (1971), where he played an investigative journalist;People of respect (1975), about the Sicilian mafia; the telefilm21 Hours in Munich (1976), with William Holden ; the westernKeoma (1976); the adventurerNavarone’s Force 10 (1978) orThe Red Salamander (1981), with Anthony Quinn . He also stood out in the television miniseries El pirata (miniseries) , and also successfully joined the trend of martial arts and hand-to-hand fighting films, such as The Day of the Cobra (1980) or Justice of the Ninja (1981). The following year she collaborated with Fassbinder on the controversial filmsued .

In the 80s and onwards, Franco Nero’s fame began to decline and normally he only obtained second-rate roles or as a lure for cheap B-series products or telefilms without a run. There are some interesting exceptions, such asBeautiful Mafia (1997) andLetters to Juliet (2010), works where he met again with Vanessa Redgrave, or television productsThe Bible: Saint Paul (2000),The Crusades (2001) andSaint Augustine (2010).