{"id":303,"date":"2008-08-07T11:44:18","date_gmt":"2008-08-07T11:44:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/europeanfilmreview.co.uk\/blog\/?p=303"},"modified":"2010-03-30T13:13:06","modified_gmt":"2010-03-30T13:13:06","slug":"leo-coleman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.thewildeye.co.uk\/blog\/performers-directors\/black-actors-in-italy\/leo-coleman\/","title":{"rendered":"Leo Coleman"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/europeanfilmreview.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/themes\/mimbo2.2\/images\/leo-coleman.jpg\" onclick=\"javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http:\/\/europeanfilmreview.co.uk']);\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-304\" style=\"border: 1px solid black; float: right; margin: 5px; padding: 1px\" title=\"leo-coleman\" src=\"http:\/\/europeanfilmreview.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/themes\/mimbo2.2\/images\/leo-coleman.jpg\" alt=\"Leo Coleman \" width=\"182\" height=\"251\" \/><\/a>OK, first things first&#8230; Leo Coleman is NOT the director Leopoldo Savona.  As far as I can work out, Savona used the psuedonym Leo Colman on one film, and the two have been inextricably mixed up since that.<\/p>\n<p>Leo Coleman, on the other hand, was a black dancer who was involved with the Katherine Dunham troupe (see also Van Aikens and Wilbert Bradley) and ended up in Rome in the late 1940s, plying his trade on stage (as in his earliest film role, the opera <strong>The Medium<\/strong>).  He drifted into the film industry, working both as an actor &#8211; of in parts that called for some kind of dancing &#8211; as in <strong>La dolce vita<\/strong>.  He also acted as a choreographer, arranging dance sequences and also providing tuition to the stars of the time (he taught the Mambo to Sophia Loren).<\/p>\n<p>Beyond that, information is sketchy.  I think he is still alive and lives in Rome, but can&#8217;t confirm this.<\/p>\n<p>On TV<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>&#8220;Studio One&#8221; &#8230;. Toby (1 episode, &#8216;The Medium&#8217;)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Film<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Fanciulle di lusso (1953) aka Finishing School &#8230;. Boyfriend of Val<\/li>\n<li>Saranno uomini (1957)<\/li>\n<li>Dolce vita, La (1960) &#8230;. Negro Dancer<\/li>\n<li>Gigante di Metropolis, Il aka The Giant of Metropolis (1961) &#8230;. Danzatore<\/li>\n<li>FBI chiama Istanbul aka None But the Lonely Spy (1964)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>As choreographer<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Donna del fiume, La (1955) aka Woman of the River<\/li>\n<li>It Started in Naples (1960)<\/li>\n<li>Gigante di Metropolis, Il (1961) aka The Giant of Metropolis<\/li>\n<li>Invasori, Gli (1961) aka Erik the Conqueror<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Leo Coleman was a black dancer who was involved with the Katherine Dunham troupe<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[733,10],"tags":[299,300],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thewildeye.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thewildeye.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thewildeye.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thewildeye.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thewildeye.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=303"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.thewildeye.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1416,"href":"http:\/\/www.thewildeye.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303\/revisions\/1416"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thewildeye.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thewildeye.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thewildeye.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}