Fabio Testi

Fabio Testi was born on 2 August 1941 in Peschiera del Garda on the Lake Garda in Northern Italy.[2] A number of adventure and pirate films were shot at this lake which led him to enter the sets of these films originally as a stuntman and as a double.[2] He initially took these roles in film and television work as a way of paying for his architecture degree, but later chose to enter film work.[2] Among early work, Testi was a stunt double in Sergio Leone's The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.[2][3] He also played in Leone's follow-up as one of Henry Fonda's henchmen.[3] Most of Testi's role in the film was cut except for one shot, as Leone felt that Testi was too clean-looking for the film.[3]

Demofilo Fidani gave Testi his first on-screen role in his film Straniero... fatti il segno della croce ! (transl. Stranger, Make the Sign of the Cross)[3] Testi continued his career doing what film historian and critic Roberto Curti described as "low-grade genre" films including a Zorro film The Avenger, Zorro by Rafael Romero Marchent, the thriller Death Knocks Twice with Anita Ekberg and singer Dean Reed by Harald Philipp, and more films by Fidani such as One Damned Day at Dawn… Django Meets Sartana! where he played the role of Sartana.[3] While director Fidani was scouting locations for the film Jungle Master, he met Vittorio De Sica who was also location scouting at the Orto Botanico dell'Università di Roma "La Sapienza".[3] Fidani recalled that the two directors spoke: De Sica was looking for a younger Latin actor but couldn't find anyone, and asked Fidani if he knew any.[3] Fidani stated he knew an actor who "can't act to save his life, but with you as a guide ... you know, I never have enough time, I always go for the first take'"[3] Fidani stated later that upon discovering that Testi had been cast by De Sica, he had made Testi cut his hair.[3] Curti noted that Fidani had a "notorious habit of embellishing his own career and filmography" and that the story may not be true.[3]

Testi was cast in The Garden of the Finzi-Continis which won De Sica an Academy Award.[3] Following the release of the film, Testi became a big box office name in Italy.[3] He continued to do genre films as well as artistic films such as Giuseppe Patroni Griffi's 'Tis Pity She's a Whore, Denys de la Patelliere's Le Tueur and Claude Chabrol's Nada and Andrzej Zulawski's That Most Important Thing: Love.[3] In the 1970s, Testi also worked on several genre films, predominantly crime films such as Pasquale Squitieri's Gang War in Naples, Sergio Sollima's Blood in the Streets, Tonino Valerii's Go Gorilla Go and Enzo G. Castellari's The Big Racket.[3] Testi also did work in giallo films, such as Massimo Dallamano's What Have You Done to Solange? and Alberto Negrin's Red Rings of Fear.[3][4] Testi also worked Lucio Fulci on two of his films: Four of the Apocalypse and Contraband.[4]

Testi was cast in a role intended for Maurizio Merli in Stelvio Massi's Speed Cross and Speed Driver.[4] Testi fell out of popularity in film by the 1980s showing up in Gianfranco Baldanello's thriller The Uranium Conspiracy and Silvio Amadio's drama A Gun for a Cop.[4] From the eighties onward, Testi predominantly worked in television, such as Castellari's mini-series Il ritorno di Sandokhan where he replaced Philippe Leroy as Yanez.[4] Testi also began showing up in television reality shows such as L'isola dei famosi in 2003, the Spanish show El gran hermano in 2005, and La talpa in 2008.[4] In the late 2000s, Testi entered politics, where he ran for mayor in Verona.[4]

Testi was known to be in relationships with several actresses, including Edwige Fenech, Charlotte Rampling, Lynne Frederick,[5] Ursula Andress and Jean Seberg.[3] His longest relationship was with Spanish actress Lola Navarro, whom he began dating in the late 1970s and had three children with.[3] The two married in 1984[6] and separated in 1996.[3] As of 2013, Testi was focusing on his interest in agriculture, and owned the third largest kiwi farm in Italy.[4]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Fabio Testi.

• Official website
• Fabio Testi at IMDb