Fabio Testi
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Fabio Testi is an Italian actor, star of, among many others, the film First Action Hero which, curiously, is not included in his official website's filmography. Born in Italy on August 2 of 1941, the 1.84m tall actor started his film career as a stuntman in his college years. His most famous job as a stuntman was in Sergio Leone's Once Upon a Time in the West, where he fell from a rooftop and hit the ground on his shoulder.
In the 1970s, Fabio Testi became the subject of news items on account of his involvement with international superstar Ursula Andress. The relationship lasted three years, but ended when Testi decided he was too jealous a lover. Another romance found him in the arms of Charlotte Rampling but he would only marry in 1979, to Lola Navarro, with whom he fathered three children. Testi skirted international stardom through a series of unusual role choices and a firm decision to remain in Italy. He chose to work with people like Miles Deem, known as the "Ed Wood of Spaghetti Westerns" when better roles were available. Fabio Testi was cast by director Andrzej Żuławski in L'important c'est d'aimer (1975), a film which has since acquired cult status, to play the lead, opposite Romy Schneider, Klaus Kinski, Jacques Dutronc and Claude Dauphin.
In America, many of his movies saw a DVD release through Blue Underground studios, usually including a subtitled interview with the actor discussing the film at hand.
[edit] Partial filmography
- The Garden of the Finzi-Continis (1970)
- Addio, Fratello Crudele (Tis Pity...) (1971)
- What Have You Done to Solange? (1972)
- Gang War in Naples (1972)
- L'important c'est d'aimer (1975)
- Four of the Apocalypse (1975)
- The Big Racket (1976)
- The Heroin Busters (1977)
- China 9, Liberty 37 (1978)
- Contraband (1980)
- The Ambassador (1984)
- First Action Hero (1994)
