Lando Buzzanca |
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Lando Buzzanca in 2009 at the Roma Fiction Festival |
Born |
Gerlando Buzzanca (1935-08-24) 24 August 1935 Palermo, Italy |
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Occupation |
Actor, Theatre director |
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Years active |
1959–present |
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Children |
Massimiliano Buzzanca |
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Gerlando Buzzanca (born 24 August 1935 in Palermo) is an Italian comedic actor.
Life and career
He left high school in Palermo when he was 16 years old, and moved to Rome to pursue his dream of becoming an actor. In order to survive, he took many jobs: waiter, furniture mover, and a brief appearance as a slave in the film Ben-Hur.
In his long career he often interpreted the role of the average Italian immigrant from southern Italy, who slowly began to enjoy moderate success during the years of the Italian economic miracle. His films showcased all the freshness of the 1960s, the 1970s and the heavier transition to the 1980s, focusing on the common life in several Italian cities such as Rome, Verona or Milan, balanced between personal happiness and professional achievement.
Buzzanca often interpreted roles of a subordinate white-collar worker, with a heavy
vein of machismo, as a frustrated employee who tries to redeem his dull existence with his virility.
He became famous for his role in the film Il merlo maschio, (The Male Blackbird), where in a provincial environment of cultural importance, the philharmonic orchestra of the Arena di Verona, he vents out his own frustrations, indulging into candaulism when he induces his bride to expose her naked body in the middle of a bridge in Verona.
Some critics, in a lighter vein, have defined Buzzanca as a "Homo eroticus":
a human being halfway between Homo erectus and Homo sapiens, who risked extinction in the 1970s because of the harsh struggle with feminism activists. Today, even though much less so, this behavior is still found among Italian males.
Buzzanca's fame is greater in foreign countries than in his native
land, and in countries as France, Japan, Greece, Israel, Spain and
Switzerland.
Awards
David di Donatello
Golden Globes, Italy
Filmography
1959–1969
Year |
Film |
Role |
Director |
Other players |
1959 | Ben-Hur | Jewish Slave in the Desert (uncredited) | William Wyler | Charlton Heston, Jack Hawkins, Haya Harareet, Stephen Boyd, Martha Scott, Cathy O'Donnell, Sam Jaffe, Hugh Griffith, Finlay Currie |
1961 | Divorzio all'italiana | Rosario Mulè | Pietro Germi | Marcello Mastroianni, Daniela Rocca, Stefania Sandrelli, Leopoldo Trieste, Odoardo Spadaro |
1962 | I giorni contati | Son of Cesare | Elio Petri | Salvo Randone |
1963 | La smania addosso | carabiniere Sanfilippo | Marcello Andrei | Gérard Blain, Annette Stroyberg, Nino Castelnuovo, Vittorio Gassman |
1963 | La parmigiana | Michele Pantanò | Antonio Pietrangeli | Catherine Spaak, Nino Manfredi, Salvo Randone |
1963 | Le monachine | Amilcare Franzetti | Luciano Salce | ? |
1963 | Tutto il bello dell'uomo | ? | Aldo Sinesio | ? |
1963 | I mostri | Luciana's Husband (segment "Come un padre") | Dino Risi | Ugo Tognazzi, Vittorio Gassman, Marisa Merlini, Michèle Mercier, Marino Masé |
1964 | Senza sole né luna | ? | Luciano Ricci | ? |
1964 | Extraconiugale | Roberto, suo fratello (episode "La doccia") | Massimo Franciosa | ? |
1964 | Cadavere per signora | Enzo | Mario Mattoli | ? |
1964 | Sedotta e abbandonata | Antonio Ascalone | Pietro Germi | ? |
1964 | Amore in quattro dimensioni | ? (segment "Amore e alfabeto") | Mino Guerrini, Massimo Mida, Gianni Puccini and Jacques Romain | ? |
1964 | I marziani hanno dodici mani | Lo sposo | Franco Castellano & Giuseppe Moccia (Castellano & Pipolo) | ? |
1964 | L'idea fissa | ? (segment "Prima notte, La") | Mino Guerrini and Gianni Puccini | ? |
1964 | Il magnifico cornuto | Guardian | Antonio Pietrangeli | ? |
1965 | Su e giù | Cuccio (segment "Questione di Principo") | Mino Guerrini | ? |
1965 | Letti sbagliati | ? (segment "Il complicato") | Stefano Vanzina (Steno) | ? |
1965 | James Tont operazione U.N.O. | James Tont | Bruno Corbucci | Alighiero Noschese |
1965 | James Tont operazione D.U.E. | James Tont | Bruno Corbucci | France Anglade |
1965 | Le Corniaud | Lino | Gérard Oury | ? |
1965 | Le lit à deux places | ? | Jean Delannoy, François Dupont-Midi, Alvaro Mancori and Gianni Puccini | ? |
1965 | Made in Italy | Giulio (segment "1 'Usi e costumi', episode 2") | Nanni Loy | ? |
1966 | Per qualche dollaro in meno | Bill | Mario Mattoli | Raimondo Vianello |
1966 | Ringo e Gringo contro tutti | Serg. Gringo | Bruno Corbucci | ? |
1966 | I nostri mariti | Ragionier Manzi (segment "Il Marito di Olga") | Luigi Filippo D'Amico, Dino Risi and Luigi Zampa | ? |
1966 | Caccia alla volpe | Police Chief | Vittorio De Sica | Peter Sellers, Victor Mature |
1967 | Spia, spione | Carlo Barazzetti | Bruno Corbucci | ? |
1967 | Una Rosa per tutti | Lino | Franco Rossi | Claudia Cardinale, Nino Manfredi |
1967 | Don Giovanni in Sicilia | Giovanni Percolla | Alberto Lattuada | ? |
1967 | Operazione San Pietro | Napoleone | Lucio Fulci | Edward G. Robinson |
1968 | Colpo di sole | ? | Mino Guerrini | ? |
1968 | Anyone Can Play | Blackmailer | Luigi Zampa | Ursula Andress, Virna Lisi, Claudine Auger |
1968 | Better a Widow | Massito | Duccio Tessari | Virna Lisi, Peter McEnery, Gabriele Ferzetti |
1968 | Criminal Affair | Esteban de Flori | Rossano Brazzi | Ann-Margret, Rossano Brazzi |
1969 | Puro siccome un angelo papà mi fece monaco... di Monza | Nunzio di Licordia | Giovanni Grimaldi | Didi Perego,Alfredo Rizzo, Umberto D'Orsi, Paul Muller, Renato Malavasi |
1969 | La donna a una dimensione | Host on TV (uncredited) | Bruno Baratti | |
1969 | Frau Wirtin hat auch eine Nichte | Conte Lombardini | Franz Antel | Margaret Lee, Edwige Fenech |
1969 | Those Daring Young Men in Their Jaunty Jalopies | Marcello | Ken Annakin | Tony Curtis, Peter Cook, Walter Chiari |
1970–1980
Year |
Film |
Role |
Director |
Other players |
1970 | Un caso di coscienza | Salvatore Vaccagnino | Giovanni Grimaldi | Raymond Pellegrin, Aldo Bufi Landi, Nando Gazzolo |
1970 | Il debito coniugale | Orazio | Franco Prosperi | Barbara Bouchet, Orazio Orlando, Anita Ekberg, Mario Carotenuto, Pippo Franco, Nerina Montagnani, Anita Saxe, Vittorio De Bisogno, Ruggero Rosi, Alberto Hammermann, Angela Luce |
1970 | Fermate il mondo…voglio scendere! | Ricky Ceciarelli | Giancarlo Cobelli | Paola Pitagora, Barbara Steele |
1970 | When Women Had Tails | Kao | Pasquale Festa Campanile | Senta Berger, Giuliano Gemma, Frank Wolff, Renzo Montagnani, Lino Toffolo, Francesco Mulé, Aldo Giuffrè, Paola Borboni |
1970 | Il prete sposato | Don Salvatore | Marco Vicario | Rossana Podestà, Salvo Randone, Magali Noël, Luciano Salce, Silvia Dionisio, Mariangela Melato, Wendy D'Olive, Pietro De Vico, Isabella Savona, Emilio Bonucci, José Cruz, Karin Schubert, Katerina Lindfelt, Enrico Maria Salerno, Barbara Bouchet |
1970 | La prima notte del Dottor Danieli, industriale col complesso del... giocattolo | Carlo Danieli | Giovanni Grimaldi | Katia Christine, Françoise Prévost, Alfredo Rizzo, Saro Urzì, Ira von Fürstenberg, Carlo Sposito, Linda Sini, Renato Malavasi, Enzo Garinei, Ileana Rigano, Ada Pometti, Saro Spadaro |
1970 | Nel giorno del Signore | Pietro | Bruno Corbucci | Fred Robsahm, Sydney Earle Chaplin, Ira von Fürstenberg, Lino Banfi, Gino Bramieri, Vittorio Caprioli |
1971 | Il vichingo venuto dal Sud | Rosario Trapanese | Steno | Pamela Tiffin, Renzo Marignano, Gigi Ballista, Rita Forzano, Steffen Zacharias, Dominique Boschero, Alessandro Figurelli, Victoria Zinny, Donatella Della Nora, Ada Pometti, Ferdy Mayne, Kjeld Nørgaard, Edda Ferronao |
Television
- Cinema (1988)
- Cornetti al miele (1999)
- Una famiglia per caso (2003)
- Il cielo può attendere (2005)
- Mio figlio (2005)
- Chiara e Francesco (2007)
- La baronessa di Carini (2007)
- Lo scandalo della Banca Romana (2010)
- Capri 3 (2010)
- Io e mio figlio - Nuove storie per il commissario Vivaldi (2010)
- Il Restauratore (2012 - 2014)
- Terra ribelle – Il nuovo mondo (2012)
- Ballando con le stelle (2016) as Dancer
Theatre
See also
External links