Franco Nero
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Franco Nero (born 23 November 1941) is an Italian actor.
Biography
Personal life
Nero was born Francesco Sparanero in San Prospero, Emilia-Romagna, and grew up in Bedonia and in Milan. He studied briefly at the Economy and Trade faculty of the local university, before leaving to study at the Piccolo Teatro di Milano.
His romantic involvement with British actress Vanessa Redgrave has continued for 40 years. In 1969, they had a son, Carlo Gabriel Sparanero (known professionally as Carlo Nero), a screenwriter and director. On December 31, 2006, they married. Carlo Nero directed Vanessa Redgrave in the cinematic adaptation of Wallace Shawn's play The Fever.
In 1987, while filming in Cartagena, (Colombia) he was involved in an affair with Mauricia Mena and fathered a son named Franquito.
Career
His first film role was a small part in La ragazza in prestito (1964), and he had his first lead role in Sergio Corbucci's Django (1966) a Spaghetti Western and one of his most well-known films. In 1966 from Django he went on to appear in eight more films released that year including Texas, addio and Tempo di massacro.
In 1967, he appeared in his first English language film, Camelot as Lancelot, where he met his future romantic partner, Vanessa Redgrave. Following this he appeared in the mafia film Il giorno della civetta opposite Claudia Cardinale released in 1968.
A lack of proficiency in English tended to limit these roles, although he also appeared in other English language films including The Virgin and the Gypsy (1970), Force 10 from Navarone (1978), Enter the Ninja (1981) and Die Hard 2 (1990).
Although often typecast in films like Los amigos (1972) or Keoma (1976) he has attempted an impressive range of characters, such as Abel in John Huston's epic The Bible: In The Beginning (1966), the humiliated engineer out for revenge in Street Law, and the gay lieutenant in Querelle (1982). He has appeared in almost 150 films, and has written, produced and starred in one: Jonathan degli orsi (1993).
More recently, he starred in Hungarian director Gábor Koltay's Honfoglalás (Conquest) in 1996, and subsequently in Koltay's Sacra Corona (Holy Crown) in 2001.
