Hollywood on the Tiber Vol. 1: An American in Rome – 250 U.S. Actors in Italian Cinema, 1950-1990 Q & A with Michelle Alexander
1 What is Hollywood on the Tiber Vol. 1: An American in Rome – 250 U.S. Actors in Italian Cinema, 1950-1990 about?
Hollywood on the Tiber Vol. 1: An American in Rome – 250 U.S. Actors in Italian Cinema, 1950-1990 is an A-Z reference book featuring a selection of biographies and filmographies of 250 U.S. born actors who appeared in three or more Italian-funded (or partially Italian-funded) films. It opens with a survey of Italian commercial cinema from the late 19th Century onward, expanding into 250 biographies of American actors and English language voice dubbers who went to Italy to work in Italian productions from the late 1940s to the early 1990s. These actors worked at Cinecitta and other Italian studios and the Roman based dubbing centers which created English language and other versions of films. From famous American movie stars to less well-known character actors their careers before, during and after their work in Europe are recounted in detail. For those interested in Italian and European genre cinema this book goes behind the scenes on hundreds of international productions.
2 How did you come up with the idea to write Hollywood on the Tiber?
The late Allen Kupfer thought of the initial idea to dedicate a book solely to English-speaking actors who appeared in Italian films, as there has been no such book written to date. After discussing what format the book should be in, we both agreed that it would be an A-Z reference book, so that the reader could choose to read from cover to cover, or “dip in” and read various profiles as they pleased.
3 What made so many U.S. actors decide to make the big move to Italy?
There was a variety of reasons. Some had been blacklisted from Hollywood due to their Communist politics, some went for financial reasons and saw a goldmine of work there, while others whose reputations had been tarnished due to alcohol or drug issues found that their problems would be overlooked in Italy. Some were enticed by the glamorous “La Dolce Vita” lifestyle and saw the opportunity of film work in Italy as akin to a paid vacation.
4 Who were the most internationally recognized U.S. actors to appear in Italian films?
Jack Palance, Clint Eastwood, Jane Fonda, Kirk Douglas, Marlon Brando, Ernest Borgnine, Charles Bronson, James Coburn, Jennifer Connelly, Broderick Crawford, Shelley Winters, Faye Dunaway, Elliott Gould, George Hamilton, Harvey Keitel, Jayne Mansfield, Victor Mature and Raquel Welch all made appearances in several Italian (or Italian-funded) films. The book explains why all of these name actors starred in these films.
5 Why was there such a burgeoning film industry in Rome?
The evolution of a truly international cinema based in Rome began when Hollywood superstar Ingrid Bergman left for Italy to appear in a critically acclaimed series of features directed by Roberto Rossellini. These films, Stromboli (1950), Europa ’51 (1952), Viaggio in Italia and Paura (both 1954), shook the foundations of Italian cinema. During the 1950s and into the 1960s Rome became known as “Hollywood on the Tiber” as American and English language speaking actors flooded into Rome looking for roles in Italian films. American superstar Kirk Douglas travelled to Italy to star in Ulysses (1954) for director Mario Camerini. Another Hollywood leading light, Anthony Quinn, also joined the cast. Quinn would also star in Federico Fellini’s Academy Award winning hit, La strada (1954). Broderick Crawford, an Academy Award winning star, also travelled to Rome to appear in another Fellini film, Il bidone (1955). Many other American-born actors followed suit with the promise of, or on the hunt for, work.
6 What caused the rapid decline in film output from the 1980s in Italy?
The opening of several new television channels in the early 1980s made that medium incredibly popular with the public, and as TV shows were much less expensive to produce than feature films, funding for movies decreased significantly, leading to far less theatrical releases compared to the halcyon days of the 1950s.
7 What were the most popular genres for films made/produced in Italy?
Horror, westerns and peplums (sword and sandal films) were the most popular and successful genres. In 1958 Pietro Francisci’s Hercules kicked off the peplum genre, starring U.S. bodybuilder Steve Reeves. Peplums continued to appear up to the mid- 1960s with other bodybuilder turned actors such as Gordon Scott and Gordon Mitchell arriving from America to appear in such sword and sandal pictures as The Giant of Metropolis and Maciste and the Seven Wonders of the World (both 1961). Riccardo Freda’s Caltiki, the Immortal Monster (1959) and Mario Bava’s Black Sunday (1960) (a breakthrough film for English actress Barbara Steele) were instrumental in ushering in the steam of horror titles that would follow, as was Dario Argento’s The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1969), which signaled the beginning of the huge wave of giallo films produced in the 1970s. The worldwide success of as Sergio Leone’s trio of westerns (A Fistful of Dollars (1964), The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966) and Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)) solidified the Italian western, aka spaghetti western as the most commercially viable genre to appear from Italy since the success of Hercules and the sword and sandal films, Italian and European westerns would continue to be made well into the 1970s.
8 Many of these films were dubbed into English, was there a regular team of dubbers who worked on these?
There was a pool of about a dozen U.S., Canadian and UK-born dubbers who regularly worked in the field from the 1960s to the early 1990s. They came from varying backgrounds; the Canadian actor Ted Rusoff and his wife Carolyn De Fonseca, and ex-American GI Richard McNamara ended up with extensive credits in dubbing of Italian and other European movies. Dubbing studios included Fono Roma, International Recording Studio and ELDA-English Language Dubbers Association.
9 Were many of these films successful outside of Italy?
Some were, yes, such as Sergio Leone’s trio of westerns starring Clint Eastwood (A Fistful of Dollars (1964), The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966) and Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)), which were immensely successful, making Eastwood an internationally recognized star and paving the way for countless westerns to be directed or funded in Italy. Lucio Fulci’s Zombie (1980) and The House by the Cemetery (1981) were big drive-in hits in the U.S. Hercules was a box-office smash (earning over 5 million dollars in the U.S. and selling over 66 million tickets worldwide). Many of these films which were released in predominantly English-speaking countries were either horror or western titles, and were thus viewed as “B grade” by many critics and reviewed unfavorably.
10 What will the follow-up volume to Hollywood on the Tiber comprise of?
Volume 2 of Hollywood on the Tiber will focus on actors from other mainly English-speaking countries (UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand) and will be in the same A-Z format as the first volume.