Tomás Milián who died last week from a stroke in his
apartment in Miami, was born in Havana, Cuba, on March 3, 1933. His father was
an army general under Gerardo Machado, president of Cuba between 1925 and 1933.
After the collapse of Machado's government, Tomás' father was arrested and
jailed; he was released later, but denied most of his civil rights. In 1946, a 12-year old Tomás
witnessed the suicide of his father, an event that would scar the young man for
life. In 1957 the family moved to the US.
Tomás became a student of Lee Strasberg, studying method
acting at the Actors Studio in New York City. He was offered a few minor roles
in major productions but decided to move to Italy to prove his luck in the then
flourishing Italian movie industry. In the late 1950s and early 1960s he
appeared as a supporting actor in several movies produced and directed by Mauro
Bolognini.
In 1965 Spanish director Eugenio Martin offered him a role
in the Italian-Spanish co-production The Bounty Killer (El precio de un Hombre,
Italian title: La morte ti segue... ma non ha fretta). His next role, in Sergio
Sollima's The Big Gundown (La Resa dei Conti), as the charming Mexican bandit
Cuchillo, falsely accused of rape, would mark his great breakthrough: the movie
also featured Lee van Cleef and is often called one of the finest spaghetti
westerns in history, topped only by some of Sergio Leone's masterpieces. The finale features a famous duel with the charactor of Cuchillo beating a ruthless gunman with his knife, the so-called "poor man's gun". Milian
would return as Cuchillo in Run Man Run, in which the character had become a
revolutionary. To fans of the spaghetii western, he will forever be Cuchillo.
Ironically this refugee from Cuba was asked to play a
left-wing revolutionary in movies like Giuli Petroni's Tepepa (in which he appeared alongside Orson Welles!) and Sergio
Corbucci's Vamos a matar, Compañeros. He saw his characters as Third World
heroes, making history for those who were denied a decent life, not necessarily as political (that is communist) activists, but on the set
of Face to Face he would repeatedly clash with co-protagonist Gian-Maria
Volonté, a left-wing activist. He also appeared in the non-political, but
highly symbolical (some would say diabotical) Django Kill... If You Live, Shoot! (Se sei vivo spara).
Even when playing Spanish speaking characters, Tomás Milián was
usually dubbed by a voice actor (a practice very common in Italy), but in
Tepepa he delivered his own lines for the first time, creating a curious - and according
to many very funny - mixed language called 'Spitaliano' that contributed a lot
to his popularity in Italy.
After the glory years of the spaghetti western, Tomas Milián
turned to other genres such as giallo, poliziotesco and comedy. He became
enduringly popular in his new home country (he had become an Italian state
citizen in 1969) thanks to two roles: the petty thief Er Monezza and the
unorthodox police officer Nico Giraldi (in a series of eleven comedy thrillers between
1976 and 1984). Milian was dubbed in these movies but wrote his
own lines in Roman slang.
Although he will be remembered primarily for his appearances in genre movies, Tomás Milián also appeared in highly regarded - non-genre - productions such as Bernardo Bertolucci's La Luna (1979) and Michelangelo Antonioni's Identificazione di una Donna (1980). In the autumn of his years, he returned to the US and made some guest appearances in Hollywood productions such as Steven Spielberg's Amistad (1997) and Steven Soderbergh's Traffic (2000).
Although he will be remembered primarily for his appearances in genre movies, Tomás Milián also appeared in highly regarded - non-genre - productions such as Bernardo Bertolucci's La Luna (1979) and Michelangelo Antonioni's Identificazione di una Donna (1980). In the autumn of his years, he returned to the US and made some guest appearances in Hollywood productions such as Steven Spielberg's Amistad (1997) and Steven Soderbergh's Traffic (2000).
Ironically he had expressed his wish to return to Rome to
his close friend Monica Cattaneo shortly before his death on March 22.
References:
Tomas (as Giraldi) with John Dulaney |
References:
* Marco Giusti, Dizionario del western all'italiano
* Tomas Milian è Morto: in Italia il successo come "Er
Monezza", Gazetta.It
- http://www.gazzetta.it/Altri-Mondi/23-03-2017/tomas-milian-morto-italia-successo-come-er-monnezza-190248139796.shtml
A List of all Spaghetti Westerns starring Tomas Milian:
* https://www.spaghetti-western.net/index.php/Category:Thomas_Milian
A List of all Spaghetti Westerns starring Tomas Milian:
* https://www.spaghetti-western.net/index.php/Category:Thomas_Milian
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