Cemetery with crosses - legends lost but remembered
KÜLOWThis 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...
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Spanish actor Conrado San Martin died in Madrid, Spain on April 26, 2019. He was 98. San Martin was born in Higuera de las Dueñas, Ávila, Castilla y León, Spain on February 20, 1921. Conrado wante to be an agricultural engineer, but the Spanish Civil War changed his plans. At age 18 he worked as an extra in 'Oro vil' (1941), in which they needed someone who knew how to punch. He was recruited by the stunt coordinator, a former boxer, with whom San Martin knew from the gym where he trained as a boxer. He was paid five dollars a day and given a hotel room. Then came more than a hundred movies and series which made him one of the classic gallants of our cinema. Conrado appeared in nine Euro-westerns: Dirty Gold (1941); In a Colt's Shadow (1965) as Duke Buchanan; Long Days of Revenge (1967) as Mr. Cobb; Turn I’ll Kil You (1967) as Ted Shaw; Once Upon a Time in the West (1968) as a neighbor seen at the funeral; And God Said to Cain (1969) as the prison warden; Duck You Sucker (1970): Al este del Oeste (1983) as the Alcalde and archive footage of him was used in 2016’s Stop Over in Hell.
German stage, film, TV actress Ellen Schwiers died at her home on Lake Starnberg, Bavaria, Germany on April 26, 2019 as the result of a neurological disease. She was 88. Schwiers was born in Stettin, Pomerania, Germany on June 11, 1930, into a family of actors she toured in several theater plays and then appeared in more than 100 films and television shows between 1949 and 2017. Ellen appeared in two Euro-westerns: “The Bandits of the Rio Grande” (1965) as Lida and “Ballad of a Gunman” (1967) as Maruja’s mother.
Serbian actor Vojislav (Voja) Miric died in Belgrade, Serbia on April 23, 2019. He was 86. Born on April 7, 1933 in Trstenik, Serbia, Yugoslavia, he and his brother left home for Belgrade where Voja was offered a role in a stage play. He intended to study architecture although his family wanted him to become a lawyer. He started studying acting at the Novi Sad Theater which was interrupted by military service. After his afterwards he continued in the Belgrade drama where he graduated. In films, he played fifty roles (ten major films), in 1964 won the Silver Arena for the film "Official Position" by Fadil Hadzic, and ten years later the Golden Arena for "Dervish and Death" by Zdravko Velimirovic. He appeared in two Euro-westerns: “Frontier Hellcat” (1964) as Stewart with Elke Sommer and Stewart Granger and “Flaming Frontier” (1965) as Joe with Granger and Pierre Brice.
Terry Rawlings, who received an Oscar nomination for best picture winner Chariots of Fire and edited the Ridley Scott films Alien, Blade Runner and Legend, has died. He was 85. Rawlings died April 23, 2019 at his home in Hertfordshire, England. He was best known as the film editor on 'Alien,' 'Blade Runner' and 'Chariots of Fire. Rawlings was the dubbing editor on one Euro-western: “Chato’s Land” (1972).
German actress Hannelore Elsner died in her sleep on April 21, 2019. She was 76. While not well known outside continental Europe, Elsner was a major star in Germany, one of the country's most famous actresses and a regular in both film and television. She was also one of the last great originals, a larger-than-life personality who seemed fearless in her choice of roles and in her intense acting style. She quickly moved to film and TV roles, but spent the first two decades of her career playing roles in a series of largely forgettable light comedies and romantic dramas, often as the sexy scarlet alongside 1960s German heartthrobs such as Bubi Scholz and Peter Alexander. It was not until the 1970s and '80s that she began to earn a reputation as a character actress, thanks to roles from New German Cinema auteur Edgar Reitz (The Trip to Vienna, The Tailor from Ulm) and Hungarian master Istvan Szabo (1980's The Green Bird). Her role as police detective Lea Sommer in German series The Commissioner, which ran from 1994 to 2006, made Elsner a bona fide TV star and broke new ground for the portrayal of women in German television. Elsner appeared in only one Euro-western “Challenge to White Fang” (1974) as Jane Leclerc.
German composer, arranger, conductor Martin Böttcher died on April 20, 2019, he was 91. Known to all Germans and western film fans as the composer for the majority of the Winneotou films of the 1960s. Böttcher’s melodic compositions set the tone for the series of West German Indian films which were succeeded by the so called Spaghetti westerns in the mid to late 1960. Without Böttcher there would be no Morricone. Born in Berlin, Germany on June 17, 1927, during WWII as a prisoner of war, Böttcher managed to get hold of a guitar and taught himself to play it. Following his release from captivity, he went to Hamburg. There he started his musical career with the then Nordwestdeutscher Rundfunk, in the dance and entertainment orchestra which had been newly founded by Willi Steiner, and which was held in high esteem in England. Thanks to producer Artur Brauner, Böttcher made his cinematic debut in 1955, composing the music for the military satire Der Hauptmann und sein Held. His second film score turned out to be a milestone in German film history. Die Halbstarken directed by Georg Tressler and starring Horst Buchholz, met with tremendous success. Mr. Martin's Band comprised the top German jazz musicians, among them Horst Fischer, Fatty George, Bill Grah, Ernst Mosch and Hans 'James' Last. Martin Böttcher found his greatest success in the 1960s composing the score for ten of the Karl May films, the first being Der Schatz im Silbersee with the famous "Old-Shatterhand-Melodie". The films starred, among many others, American actor Lex Barker and British actor Stewart Granger. The audience was enthusiastic about the wistful melodies, the fanfare-like music accompanying attacks, and the cheerful hillbilly tunes. Martin Böttcher's main themes from these films reached top positions in the German charts and sold thousands of records. The music for the Winnetou films is a landmark in German film music history. The success of these films, accompanied by Böttcher's music, made possible the "Spaghetti Westerns" with the music of Ennio Morricone. RIP to one of the great film composers of our time.
German film, theater and voice actor Klaus Sonnenschein died April 19, 2019 in Berlin, Germany, he was 83. Born in Berlin on June 13, 1935, Klaus was the German voice of Hollywood stars like Morgan Freeman, John Goodman, Captain Kirk - William Shatner, Bob Hoskins, Gene Hackman, Danny Glover and Denny DeVito . In his long career as a voice actor, he came up with over 1,294 speaking roles. The Harry Potter fans also know his voice as the voice of Ciarán Hinds playing the role of Aberforth Dumbledore in the movie Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (movie 2).Of course, Klaus Sonnenschein was also a welcome actor in front of the camera. For example, he starred in films and TV series such as Tatort, Ich heirate eine Familie, Hotel Paradies, Direktion City oder Der Trotzkopf mit. From 1972 to 1997 he appeared on stage at the Theater Berliner Tribune. He was happily married to actress Edith Hancke for over 40 years until her death in 2015. Sonnenschein was the German voice of Victor Bayo in 1965’s “Return of Ringo”; Claudio Ruffini in 1966’s “Thompson 1880”; the barkeeper in “Gentleman Killer and Aldo Cecconi in “$10,000 for a Massacre” both 1967; Federico Chentren’s in “Black Jack”; Voyo Goric in “The Man With the Long Gun”; Benito Stefanelli in “Once Upon a Time in the West” and Aldo Sambrell in “Réquiem for a Gringo” all 1968; John Scanlon in “Doc”, Bruno Corazzari in “Light the Fuse... Sartana Is Coming”; Gilberto Galimberti in “A Man Called Apocalypse Joe”; Marco Zuanelli in “Sartana's Here… Trade Your Pistol for a Coffin” all 1970; John Alderson in “The Deserter”; Cris Huerta in “His Name was Holy Ghost”; William Watson in “The Hunting Party”; John Frederick in “Yankee” all 1971; Osiride Pevarello in “Jesse and Lester, Two Brothers in a Place Called Trinity” 1972; Nicolae Iordache in the TV film “Lockruf des Goldes” 1975; Dave Thomas in 1990’s “Lucky Luke”; Richard Jordan in 1993’s “Posse”; Paul Sorvino in 2008’ “Doc West” and “Trigger Fast”.
Ferenc Bács, aka Francisco Bács was born on June 19, 1936, in Sibiu, Romania, and died on April 16, 2019, he was a Hungarian actor, winner of the Jaszai Grand Prize. Ferenc graduated in 1960 from the Hungarian-language courses of the “Szentgyorgyi István” Theater Institute in Targu Mures and was, then employed an actor at the National Theater in Târgu Mures. He went to Hungary in 1977, where he played one season on stage theatres in Miskolc and Győr respectively, then at the Budapest Comedy Theater from 1979 to 1987. Ferenc taught at the Academy of Dramatic Art and Film in Budapest. He has worked as a theatre actor and has performed many roles in cinema and television. Bács appeared in one Euro-western: “The Prophet, the Gold and the Transylvanians” (1978).
Roberta Haynes, who starred opposite Gary Cooper in the South Pacific-set 1953 movie Return to Paradise, has died. She was 91. Haynes died in Delray Beach, Florida on April 4, 2019. Born Roberta Schack on August 19, 1927, in Wichita Falls, Texas, she and her family moved to Los Angeles when she was a child. She appeared on Broadway in 1950 in The Madwoman of Chaillot with John Carradine and then with Lee J. Cobb in The Fighter (1952), which took place in Mexico. In 1957, she starred on live television with Roger Moore in a Matinee Theatre adaptation of Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest and played a South Seas princess in the movie adventure Hell Ship Mutiny. Haynes guest-starred on TV shows including Climax!, Lawman, Johnny Staccato, The F.B.I. and Falcon Crest and appeared in such other films as Point Blank (1967), The Adventurers (1970), Pete 'n' Tillie (1972) and Police Academy 6: City Under Siege (1989). She worked at the Cinecitta film studio in Rome in the mid-1960s and as a vice president for television at 20th Century Fox in the '70s, and she went on to produce several telefilms. Haynes also was writing screenplays and pitching projects up until her death, Roberta played Polly in 1970’s “Valdez is Coming”.
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