L'Italo-Americano

L'Italo-Americano THURSDAY, MAY 16, 2019 www.italoamericano.org 6 NEWS & FEATURES TOP STORIES PEOPLE EVENTS Continued from page 4 court because, indeed, the movie's plot mirrored that of his 1954's Seven Samurai. Despite the legal issues, the movie represented a turning point in cinematic trends, bringing back a style made famous by John Ford and John Wayne and trans- forming Clint Eastwood, at that time a second-tier barely known actor, into a movie star. The rela- tionship between Leone and East- wood was often volatile, which led to some memorable fights in later movies, fights Leone recalled with fondness after one last diatribe sent them two differ- ent ways. Very famous the anec- dote according to which East- wood asked to the director if his character could stop smoking cig- ars, and received a " Are you jok- ing? The cigar is the protagonist!" as an answer. Sergio Leone directed For a Fistful of Dollars with a pseudo- nym, Bob Robertson (an homage to his father's screen name), and produced it with a very low budget, shooting many scenes in the Spanish desert of Tabernas. The following two movies, For a Few Dollars More (1965) and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966), completed the Dollars Trilogy and benefited from the wonderful soundtracks created by Ennio Morricone, composer who was to work with Leone in all of his movies, up to his last, Once Upon a Time in America, in 1984. Only six movies among the over 500 he wrote music for, but they were fundamental to open the doors of Hollywood — and of the histo- ry of American and world cinema — to him, even though Morri- cone got his first Oscar for his career, and received one for an actual soundtrack only in 2016, with his work for Tarantino's The Hateful Eight: a western again, coincidentally. In 1967 Leone, who was by then a Hollywood star, directed Once Upon a Time in the West, a movie that failed to achieve in the US the success he hoped for, even though it is today considered a classic of the genre. Winner of a David di Donatello in 1972 and 1984, and of the Nastro d'Argen- to in 1985, Leone never managed to crown his career with an Oscar, in spite of being a true icon of world cinema. Highly requested in all the Hollywood circles that counted, in 1969 was invited by Sharon Tate, wife of Roman Polanski, to the party where she and her guests found a gruesome death, miraculously avoiding the Charles Manson's gang massacre. Leone didn't go because he felt unsure about his English. Two years later, he directed Duck! You Sucker, with James Coburn and Rod Steiger, then he wrote several screenplays, and was behind the camera again for parts of My Name is Nobody, a movie officially directed by Toni- no Valeri, that was to make Ter- ence Hill a star. He collaborated with Damiano Damiani for A Genius, Two Partners and a Dupe. With his production com- pany, Rafran, he then produced The Cat (1977) by Luigi Comencini and A Dangerous Toy (1979), by Giuliano Montaldo. In the early 1980s, Leone also pro- duced two Carlo Verdone's movies, Fun is Beautiful (1980) and Bianco Rosso e Verdone (1981). Now a Hollywood legend, in 1984 he gave to his public Once Upon a Time in America, an epic parable that drew anew the very imaginary of American cinema, deconstructing its cinematograph- ic dimension. At the beginning of 1989, he founded his own pro- duction company, Leone Film Group, without having time to see it grow. When he passed, on the 30th of April 1989 because of a heart attack, Leone was working to The 900 Days, dedicated to the siege of Leningrad, during the Second World War, for which he had already secured a 100 million dol- lars budget and Robert De Niro as main actor. One last, unaccom- plished project was yet another western, set against the historical backdrop of the American Civil War. A younger Sergio Leone: he started his career as a director in 1961 A still from Once Upon a Time in America, the last movie Leone directed

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