Cemetery with crosses - legends lost but remembered

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This page is our personal hall of fame. A reminder to us all that even though considered a B-genre, Spaghetti Westerns were full of great characters, played by great people. Many have passed away, and while we are young growing up re-watching all these classics, many more will probably leave us. May they be remembered. What follows, is a work-in-progress, a growing list of legends who have passed away...

Sorted by last name: A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z

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FRESH GRAVES

  • KARINA, Anna (Hanne Karin Blarke Bayer) - 9/22/1940, Solbjerg, Denmark - 12/14/2019, Paris, Île-de-France, France

Anna Karina, the Danish-born actress who became a symbol of the French New Wave, or Nouvelle Vague, in Jean Luc Godard’s 1960s films, died on Saturday in Paris. She was 79. Whether playing a streetwalker or a terrorist, Ms. Karina managed to look flirtatious, with her dark hair, wispy bangs, heavy eyeliner and lycée-chic wardrobe of sailor-uniform tops, knee socks, lots of plaid and perky headwear, from berets to boaters. Karina also pursued a singing career, with late-1960s hits like “Sous le Soleil Exactement” and “Roller Girl,” written by Serge Gainsbourg. And she wrote four novels, including “Golden City” (1983), which she described to the quarterly Film Comment as “a kind of thriller, with gangsters.” Anna Karina appeared as Clara in the 1971 TV pseudo-Euro-western “Carlos” which also starred Gottfried John, Host Frank, Geraldine Chaplin and Thomas Hunter.


  • SCIPIONI, Bruno - 7/29/1934, Rome, Lazio, Italy - 12/5/2019, Rome, Lazio, Italy

Italian theater, film, TV and voice actor Bruno Scipioni died in Rome, Italy on December 5, 2019. He was 85. Born in Rome on July 29, 1934, Scipioni graduated as an accountant and then, in 1958, he attended the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia. He started his film career with Kapò (1959) and he was particularly active during the 1960s, usually being cast as a character actor. He was also active on stage, in television series, in commercials and as voice actor. He was the father of voice actor Carlo Scipioni. Scipioni appeared in 10 Euro-westerns: “The Terrible Sheriff” (1962); as a juryman in “4 Bullets for Joe” (1963); as Verdugo in “Heroes of the West” (1963); as Damon henchman “Lost Treasure of the Aztecs” (1964); “Ranch of the Ruthless” (1964); “Renegade Gunfighter” (1965); “A Fistful of Songs” (1966); “0For One Thousand Dollars per Day” (1966); a townsman in “Ringo and His Golden Pistol” (1966); “The Handsome, the Ugly, and the Stupid” (1967).


  • DiMITRI, Antonio - 6/12/1931, Manduria, Taranto, Italy – 12/8/2019, Rome, Lazio, Italy

Italian actor and singer Antonio Dimitri died December 8, 2019 in Rome, Italy. He was 88. Known also as Tony DiMitri and George Stevenson he appeared in over 30 films and television appearances between 1953 and 1988. Born on June 12, 1931 in Manduria, Italy, he starred, using the George Stevenson alias as Quintana in 1969’s “Quintana: Dead or Alive”. He may also be best remembered in a quick cameo from “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” as a Mesilla deputy who Blondie shoots his hat off at Tuco’s hanging. His other five Euro-westerns include “Two Mafiamen in the Far West” - 1964 as (Jesse James); “God May Forgive You, Not Me” – 1966 (as Manuel Hernandez); “The Judgment of God” – 1972 (as Ringo); “6 Bounty Killers for a Massacre” – 1972 (as Rinaldo) and “When Satan Grips a Colt” – 1972. Tony also had a brief musical career as a singer releasing three 45 rpm records in 1965.


  • AUBERJONOIS, René (Rene Murat Auberjonois) - 6/1/1940, New York City, New York, U.S.A. - 12/8/2019, Los Angeles, California, U.S.A.

René Auberjonois, an actor who rose to prominence with roles on ‘Benson’, ‘Star Trek: Deep Space Nine’, and the film “M.A.S.H.”, died Sunday December 8, 2019 at his home in Los Angeles of metastatic lung cancer, the Associated Press reported. He was 79. Auberjonois was born in New York City on June 1, 1940 and was a character actor and performed in theater of the 1960s. He made the transition to film in the 1970s, and appeared on a string of popular television series in the 1980s and ’90s among which was his only Euro-western appearance in Terence Hill’s ‘Lucky Luke’ as Mr. Edgar Rockbottom / Mendez in the 1992 episode ‘Cafe Olé’.


  • RODRIGUEZ, Claudio - 8/31/1933, La Bóveda de Toro, Zamora, Spain - 12/4/2019, Madrid, Madrid, Spain

The voice and dubbing actor Claudio Rodriguez who was the voice of actors like Burt Lancaster, John Wayne and Anthony Quinn, has passed away December 4, 2019 at age 86, it was confirmed by Adoma, the association of dubbing artists in Madrid. Born in the Zamora town of La Bóveda de Toro in 1933, Rodríguez gave his voice in Spanish to well-known characters such as Albus Dumbledore, from the Harry Potter movie saga or to the Willy Fog of the eighties cartoon series “The Return of the World of Willy Fog. The actor also read the text of characters played by Max von Sydow and Charlton Heston, who once told Rodriguez that he was known in Spain thanks to him. The doubler, who also worked as a dialogue adapter and dubbing director, gave voice to other iconic characters such as the Dracula of the Francis Ford Coppola film version. He was the voice of Lee Van Cleef, Robert Hundar, Rod Cameron, Fernando Casanova, Cameron Mitchell and Luis Induni to name just a few.


  • TEJADA, Manuel - 7/8/1940, Puente de Génave, Jaen, Spain - 12/3/2019, Madrid, Madrid, Spain

Spanish theater, film, TV actor Manuel Tejada died in Madrid on December 3, 2019. He was 79. Born Manuel Tejada de Luna in Puente de Génave, “a small town in Jaén about an hour from Linares,” the actor recalled in an interview; “but my first representative told me that it was better to give a better known birthplace and I ended up being born in Linares”. Moving to Madrid he became a theater actor and then branched off into films and television before returning to the theater to end his career. He appeared in three Euro-westerns; “One by One” (1968) as Sheriff Blackie; “Death Knows No Time” (1969) and “Cut-Throats Nine” (1972) as Dean Marlowe.


  • CONGIA, Vittorio - 11/4/1930, Iglesias, Sardinia, Italy - 11/27/2019, Rome, Lazio, Italy

Italian film, TV and voice actor Vittorio Congia died in Rome on November 27, 2019. He was 89 years-old. Born in Iglesias, Sardinia, Italy on November 4, 2019, He was a familiar face, between cinema and TV, especially between the end of the 1950s and the end of the 1970s. Congia appeared in about forty films - including twelve musicals - between 1957 and 1978. He appeared in three Euro-westerns: Don’t Sing, Shoot (TV) (1967) Colonel Gaudenzio Forrester; “The Ballad of Ben and Charlie” (1972) as Alan ‘3%’ Smith and “The Three Musketeers of the West” (1973) as the wedding announcer. He was the Italian voice of Philip Ahn from 1972-1975 in the TV western “Kung Fu”.


  • POLLARD, Michael (Michael John Pollack, Jr.) - 5/30/1939, Passaic, New Jersey, U.S.A. - 11/20/2019, Los Angeles, California, U.S.A.

Veteran American actor Michael J. Pollard died in a Los Angeles, California hospital on November 20, 2019. He was 80. Born Michael John Pollack, Jr. on May 30, 1939 in Passaic, New York. Pollard had been acting since 1958. A character actor, he accumulated almost a hundred appearances in movies and television series since then. An early career break occurred when Pollard was brought in as a replacement during the first season of TV's "Dobie Gillis." Co-star Bob Denver, who was stealing the show as Dobie's beatnik buddy Maynard G. Krebs. He was going to be drafted into the Army and had to exit the series. When Denver was classified "4-F" due to a longstanding neck injury and returned, Pollard's character of weird cousin Jerome Krebs was quickly written out. Pollard played the role of "Hugo" in the original Broadway production of "Bye Bye Birdie" (costarring with Dick Van Dyke, Chita Rivera, Paul Lynde, and Dick Gautier) in the early 1960s. In 1967, Pollard earned an Academy Award nomination as Best Actor in a Supporting Role for his role of C.W. Moss in the film “Bonnie and Clyde”. He also earned two Golden Globe nominations for that role, one for Best Supporting Actor and one for Most Promising Newcomer. In addition, his performance in Bonnie and Clyde won Pollard a BAFTA Award as Most Promising Newcomer to Leading Film Roles. Michael appeared in two Euro-westerns: “The Legend of Frenchie King” (1971) as Marshal Jeffords and “Four of the Apocalypse” (1974) as Clem.


  • JASNY, Vojtěch - 11/30/1925, Kelc, Czechoslovakia, U.S.A. - 11/16/2019, Prague, Czechoslovakia

Czech director Vojtěch Jasný died in Prague on November 16, 2019. He was 93. From the 1950s, Jasny made some 50 movies in Czechoslovakia and later in the West when he emigrated after the 1968 Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia. His most famous film, “All My Good Countrymen,” from 1968, about the brutal changes in the country under communism, was banned in his homeland. It won the best director award at the Cannes Film Festival in 1969. He also won a Cannes special jury prize for his 1963 film, “The Cassandra Cat.” In the 1980s, Jasny settled in the United States, lecturing at Columbia University. He later returned home. He directed the 1965 Euro-western TV film “Magnetické vlny lécí”.

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