The Wild Eye

Just found a Robert Woods interview I hadn’t read before on a website called www.glasshousepresents.com

Alex Nicol was born in 1916 in New York. A prolific stage actor of the 1930s, where he was part of Maurice Evans’s Shakesperean company, he later spent time studying under Lee Strasberg, served as a Sergeant in the war and had some success on Broadway in the 1950s. His film career also kicked off [...]

Here’s an obscure performer who, I’d guess, must be an American: the marvellously named Jim Granite!

Who was he? Well, as far as I can tell he only appeared in one film, Carlo Lizzani’s Il gobbo (1960). He plays a young American soldier who comes to the assistance of Anna Maria Ferrero, only to be chased off by Pier Paolo Pasolini (who plays an angry, one armed, ex-partisan). He has a total of about two minutes of screentime, but it’s not an unimportant role and he has a good few lines of dialogue (spoken in English).

Hey, looks like Jeff Blynn didn’t simply disappear after making a bunch of cop films in the seventies and eighties: he opened his own restaurant, and now it’s something of an institution: here’s the link on tripadvisor

Here’s a name that was unfamiliar to me until watching the 1959 Alberto Sordi vehicle, Il moralista, directed by Giorgio Bianchi.  Hazel Rogers has a small part as one of a trio of dancers Sordi – playing a public censor who has become fascinated with the seemier side of life on a trip to Munich [...]

John Kitzmiller was one of the most prominent Afro-American actors to work in Italy during the post war period.  Born in Michigan in 1913, he first came to Europe as a soldier during the liberation of Italy, winning a Victory Medal for his efforts.  He fell in love with the country, deciding to stay there [...]

I always enjoy finding ex-pat British or American actors in obscure films, and every time I think I know them all another one pops up in some production or other. Last night, for instance, I was watching La nipote Sabella, a moderately amusing Peppino De Filippo movie, and up pops an obviously American actor playing [...]

Jim Gaines is an African-American actor, born in Hawaii in 1955, who came to prominence in a series of Filipino action films

Hal Frederick was an American actor who had a very brief career in Europe, making his debut in an Italian film, Sandokan Against the Leopard of Sarawak

Lola Falana, the daughter of an African-American mother and Cuban father, appeared in two Italian films during the late 1960s.

While the majoroty of her career was based in the US, she does seem to have become more avtive in Europe towards the later stages of her life

Mary Dawn Arden was an American actress who had support parts in two Eurospy films, 002 agenti segretissimi (64) and Michele Lupo’s above average Master Stroke (67)

Jon Chevron was a slight actor who had supporting, vaguely comic roles in a couple of Italian action films.

Leo Coleman was a black dancer who was involved with the Katherine Dunham troupe

Although not really associated with European Cinema, American actor Jim Brown did actually make a few films of interest.

Wilbert Bradley was another Minnesotan who ended up working in the Italian film industry, much like Harold Bradley (the two of them aren’t related).

Harold Bradley was a familiar face in Italian films from the early sixties, appearing in a number of them uncredited. He was also a mainstay of the Roman scene; a former footballer, singer and club manager who drifted into acting for the amusement of it… and because it was a good way of earnign a [...]

Fun link posted on the Spaghetti Western Web Board… an interview with Judith Chapman (aka Judy Chapman), Patty Shepard’s sister who featured in Up the MacGregors. Born in Greenville, S.C., to a “Southern belle” and a military officer, she was raised along with older sisters Patricia and Harriet on Air Force bases stretching from Texas, [...]

Van Aikens had a very brief Italian films career in the very early sixties, appearing in a handful of peplums. Rivolta degli schiavi, La (1960), aka Revolt of the Slaves (as Iface) Barabba (1961), aka Barabbas Gordon, il pirata nero (1961), aka The Black Pirate Maciste contro il vampiro (1961), aka Goliath and the Vampires [...]

Found an interesting story (from 2003) in the Manchester Evening News about Paul Wynter, the former Mr. Universe who appeared in Mole Men vs. the Son of Hercules and Atlas in the Land of the Cyclops: WHEN a knife-wielding intruder broke into a pensioner’s home he got more than he bargained for. Because the pensioner [...]