Giancarlo Giannini & Franco Nero : The Industry Of Invention

Giancarlo Giannini was born on August 1, 1942 in La Spezia, Italy, in the Liguria region in the north of Italy. La Spezia is the second largest city in Liguria, after Genoa, and houses a major Italian naval base as well as a commercial harbour.

When he was on the verge of beginning his secondary education, Giannini's family moved down south to Naples where he studied for a diploma in electronic engineering at the Alessandro Volta Technological State Technical Institute. Giannini moved to Rome and enrolled at the Silvio d'Amico National Academy of Dramatic Arts, named after journalist and theorist Silvio D'Amico whom Sicilian playwright Luigi Pirandello called "the priest". Giannini became an actor in the theatre, essaying roles by some of theatre's most subversive writers.

It was during his days in experimental theatre that he developed a working relationship with filmmaker Lina Wertmuller. For many years, actress Flora Carabella, a graduate of the Silvio d'Amico National Academy of Dramatic Arts, was married to actor Marcello Mastroianni. Carabella and Wertmuller had known each other since their school days. When Mastroianni introduced Wertmuller to surrealist filmmaker Federico Fellini, he became a mentor to Wertmuller, who at the time was working with an avant-garde puppet theatre group.

Wertmuller directed Giannini in 8 films in the 1960s and 1970s, and they also worked together in theatre and television. This remarkable run consisted of 'Rita The Mosquito' (1966), 'Don't Sting The Mosquito' (1967), 'The Seduction Of Mimi' (1972), 'Love And Anarchy' (1973), 'Swept Away' (1974), 'Seven Beauties' (1975), 'Blood Feud' (1978) and 'A Night Full Of Rain' (1978). After many years spent working apart, Giannini starred in Wertmuller's television movie 'Francesca And Nunziata' (2001) at the start of the century, a historical drama based upon a novel by Maria Orsini Natale.

In the 1970s, Giannini became a major star of Italian cinema. Like Marcello Mastroianni, he moved between art films and films made in the tradition of the "commedia all'italiana", working with pretty much all of the comic subgenre's great directors, but as the decade progressed, audiences developed a voracious appetite for the comedy style's peculiar cousin, the "commedia sexy all'italiana", which took a bolder visual approach ushered in by the burgeoning sexual revolution. Giannini was significantly younger than Mastroianni (born in 1924) and was encouraged by the studios to try his hand at the new style, but he declined all offers. His headlining role in Dino Risi's commercial blockbuster 'How Funny Can Sex Be?' (1973), a film that planted a foot inside both camps, was arguably as close as he ever got to the new style of comedy, though he continued working with the old school masters of the "commedia all'italiana".

An actor has to pursue his own path, this is true. Still, due to his age, it might have been interesting to see how Giannini would have fared in some of the classics of "commedia sexy all'italiana". And besides, the subgenre's prolific hands were actors like Mario Carotenuto, Vittorio Caprioli, Daniele Vargas, Carlo Sposito, Carlo Giuffrè, Renzo Montagnani, Lando Buzzanca, Aldo Maccione, Lino Banfi, Gianfranco D'Angelo, Francesco Parisi, Renato Pozzetto and "the kid" Alvaro Vitali, formidable stage performers born between 1915 and 1950, so there was truly a role for everybody if they were fully committed to the new style of filmmaking.

Voice acting is an important profession in Italy as the dubbing industry has long played a role in the creation of genre films. Like many Italian performers, Giannini has had a second, unseen career as a voice actor and dubber. He assisted fellow dubbers and dubbing directors in the foundation of the dubbing organisation Cine Video Doppiatori (C.V.D.), said to now be the oldest Italian dubbing company still in operation. Italian dubbers are often assigned a host actor and will dub most of their films if available; Giannini is one of the official voice dubbers for American actor Al Pacino and has substituted his voice in around 20 productions (Ferruccio Amendola was the other major Pacino dubber).

Giannini married Genovese actress Livia Giampalmo in 1967 and they remained together until the mid-1970s - Giampalmo became a filmmaker in the 1990s. In 1983, Giannini married Milanese actress Eurilla Del Bono and they have been together now for 37 years. Giannini is also a designer and an inventor.

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Francesco Clemente Giuseppe Sparanero was born on November 23, 1941 in Parma, Italy, in the Emilia-Romagna region in the north of Italy. Parma is the second largest city in Emilia-Romagna, after Bologna, and is famous for its poetry, art, music and architecture, as well as some delicious varieties of cheese and ham.
Sparanero spent part of his youth in Parma and part of it in Milan. His father was a comissioned officer in the Carabinieri. He considered studying Economy and Trade before dropping out to enrol at the Little Theatre of the City of Milan (Piccolo Teatro di Milano). The Piccolo Theatre, as it's known, was founded by Paolo Grassi, journalist, socialist, resistance fighter and founder of the avant-garde group Palcoscenico (Stage). The School of Dramatic Arts Paolo Grassi (Scuola d'arte drammatica Paolo Grassi) in Milan is named in his honour. The Piccolo acting company were noted for their bold interpretations of the works of Venetian dramatist Carlo Goldoni and Sicilian playwright Luigi Pirandello.

Sparanero shortened his name and began attending film auditions as Franco Nero. Having played several supporting roles, Nero became a leading man in 1966 when he entered into the "spaghetti western" genre, Italy's revisionist take on the American western which took the film-going world by storm. He gained iconic status when director Sergio Corbucci cast him in the title role of 'Django' (1966), a violent horse opera that's said to have spawned more than 30 unofficial sequels and follow-ups to date. Nero returned to the role of avenging angel Django for Nello Rossati's official sequel 'Django Strikes Again' (1987). He was approached in 2016 to act in a proposed third installment, set to be directed by American filmmaker John Sayles, but this has not yet materialised. Director Quentin Tarantino cast Nero in his own take on the 'Django' legend, 'Django Unchained' (2012).

Nero starred in Lucio Fulci's 'Massacre Time' (1966), Ferdinando Baldi's 'Texas, Adios' (1967) and Sergio Corbucci's 'Companeros' (1970), as well as Duccio Tessari's comic take on the "zapata western", 'Long Live Your Death' (1971). These roles enshrined him alongside Gian Maria Volonté and Giuliano Gemma as one of the spaghetti western's major Italian leading men (Clint Eastwood and Lee Van Cleef were Americans abroad, George Hilton was Uruguayan and Tomás Milian was Cuban). Nero returned to the western format on occasion, including the title role in Enzo Castellari's hypnotic revenger's tragedy 'Keoma' (1976).

Nero also became a popular leading man in "poliziotteschi" thrillers; the "poliziesco" cycle emerged as a successful subgenre of the crime film in the late 1960s, forging its own set of uniquely Italian characteristics over time. Nero embarked upon a series of hard-hitting police procedurals directed by political filmmaker Damiano Damiani, films that have come to be regarded as intelligent examinations of different forms of corruption - 'The Day Of The Owl' (1968), 'The Case Is Closed, Forget It' (1971), 'Confessions Of A Police Captain' (1971) and 'How To Kill A Judge' (1974). When Nero moved on to other projects, Gian Maria Volonté and Giuliano Gemma both stepped up to take leading roles in crime films directed by Damiani.
Nero also took on the now iconic title role in Romolo Guerrieri's box-office smash 'Detective Belli' (1969), then returned to the part for Enzo Castellari's stylish sequel 'High Crime' (1973), which also did well financially. Castellari reteamed with Nero for the explosive vigilante thriller 'Street Law' (1974) and the grim "poliziottesco noir" 'Day Of The Cobra' (1980), capping off a decade of action-packed mayhem in high style. In the 1970s, Nero ranked alongside Maurizio Merli, Mario Merola, Gastone Moschin, Antonio Sabàto Sr. and Fabio Testi as the crime subgenre's most dynamic Italian force (Helmut Berger was German, Luc Merenda was French and Tomás Milian was Cuban, while Americans Leonard Mann, John Saxon and Henry Silva were all tough New Yorkers).

Critics largely ignored the genre films of Franco Nero, instead focusing upon his work in arthouse cinema which was considerable. In this regard, his dual careers inspired several actors who became genre stars about a decade later, notably future sparring partners Rutger Hauer and Sylvester Stallone.
Nero engaged in a lifelong affair with Vanessa Redgrave in the 1960s and they've collaborated on numerous artistic projects together, in cinema and beyond. Their son is director Carlo Gabriel Nero. Though they've enjoyed many fruits of the loin socially, both together and during extended periods of separation, they are considered soulmates by some of those that know them. They finally tied the knot on New Year's Eve, 2006.