Acting as “Robert Mark,” with Luisa Rivelli, in HANDLE WITH CARE.


Some guys did very well, as we have seen, and others did one film and got on a plane for the States as fast as they could, shaking their heads and muttering to themselves, never to return.


It would only be a matter of time before you would find yourself in the Spaghetti Western


genre.


My agent had a friend, Amerigo Anton [real name: Tonio Boccia], who was putting together a Western script. He asked me to read it and give him some reliable feedback, since he knew I was born and raised in the “vero-ouest” [the true West]. I never told him I thought the script was awful but, after a couple of sit-downs, he asked if I would like to do the lead. I said “Sure,” and that was that. I don’t know if you’ve seen KILL OR BE KILLED, but as bad as it is, it was a lot of fun [to make]. After that, Amerigo called my agent and said he had another script, this time a dark-psychological Western [GOD DOES NOT PAY ON SATURDAY, 1967], and asked if she would let me play a heavy in it. She said I was off in Tunisia doing a film, but she would ask when I returned. When I got back, she let me read the script (which, again, I thought was


awful) but, since I had never played a vengeance hungry killer, I said “Why not?”


I played the part of Randall, one of the gang of


bad hombres, who is shot in a bank robbery es- cape and left by his friends for dead. However, in the end he returns, dressed in black, to avenge his betrayal... ho hum, and more ho hum... and he is at last permanently dispatched by the good ole good-guy, played by my friend Larry Ward. This was just another long, long party, and Amerigo was a real character, right out of Fellini’s Satyricon. He was always trying to get some lady into the proverbial sack and behaved like he thought he was Cecil B. De Mille, at the very least. He even wore the tweeds and jodhpurs with the glossy red leather boots to work, but we all loved him.


Prior to your involvement in these two films, were you aware of this new Italian breed of Western?


Burt Reynolds was a friend and, when he came over to Italy to do a Western for Sergio Corbucci, I hung out on the set a few times. Burt thought Italians were a bit nuts, as did we all, but then along came Sergio Leone and Clint Eastwood, and—“Bingo!”—the Spaghetti West- ern was a hit. Tony Russel turned down the role


31

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