Sunday, December 14, 2025

From the WAI! vault

 








Little Known Spaghetti Western actors ~ Roberto Della Casa

[These daily posts will cover little known actors or people that have appeared in more recent films and TV series. Various degrees of information that I was able to find will be given and anything that you can add would be appreciated.]

Roberto Bonacini was born in Rome, Italy on October 14, 1942. He began his career in the 1970s with police, Italian sexy comedy films in a variety of roles from football fan to policeman, doctor to judge, as well as tailor to butcher. In all 85 films and TV series. He is a versatile actor and has a unique charisma that makes him very involved with the viewer. Among his most important remembered roles are "Vieni avanti cretino" directed by Luciano Salce, "Il Petomane" directed by Pasquale Festa Campanile, with Ugo Tognazzi, in "Banzai" with Paolo Villaggio, The Cat in "Il commissario Lo Gatto" directed by Dino Risi, and "Le comiche 2" by Neri Parenti. Today he is more dedicated to the theater with occasional television appearances in fiction or drama series in both Mediaset Rai. He has participated in the Ministries of Public Information, Italian Post, "L'espresso" and other Italian advertising venues both English and French languages. In the theater he has long worked with the Society Actors & Technicians Attilio Corsini and the Italian Drama in Rijeka (Croatia), while Damiani Mangano-management, in comedies of Marin Drzic, Moliere, Goldoni, Peppino De Filippo, Ghigo De clear.

As a songwriter he participated in the 1984 Sanremo Festival with Afternoon in Marrakech, sung by i Trilli.

Under the stage name of Roberto Della Casa he appeared in only one Spaghetti western as the husband in 1978’s “Porno erotico western” (Porno-Erotic Western).

DELLA CASA, Roberto (aka Robert Bonacini) (Roberto Bonacini) [10/14/1942, Rome, Lazio, Italy -    ] – theater, stuntman, film, TV actor, songwriter.

Porno-Erotic Western – 1978 (husband)

Bitter Kill [archived newspaper article.]

 


Robert Goldstein’s

‘Westerns’ in Spain

 

Variety

Madrid, June 9 (1963)

 

     Indie producer Robert Goldstein sewed up two coproduction deals and plans to organize a production base here in film an undetermined number of westerns in the coming future.

     The American producer joined with a new active Spanish company, Pro-Artis to bring “Joaquin Murietta” before cameras this summer under the direction of George Sherman. This project was formerly on the Ocean Films slate as a four-way venture with France, Italy and Yugoslavia. With Ocean heavily committed in the current Clint Eastwood-starrer “Ray, the Magnificent” on the western plains of Castile, Pro-Artis took over “Murietta” and set the deal with Goldstein.

     Jeff Hunter was originally scheduled to star and Goldstein-Pro Artis hope to clinch him. If still available.

     Second in the Goldstein’s coproduction line up with Pro-Artis is “Bitter Kill,” a James Edward Grant screenplay, Sherman will also rein.

 

Submitted by Michael Ferguson

 

Spaghetti Western Locations for “I Want Him Dead”.

Clayton leaves Aloma at Mallek’s hacienda and rides away. Two of Mallek’s me spot him from a hillside and they follow him. Clayton stops by a pool of water in a canyon to get a drink. He spots a lone rider approaching him but not the second man sneaking up behind him with a pistol pointed at his back. The man buffalo’s him with his pistol sending Clayton into the water. The first rider arrives and tells Frank to let him drown but Frank says he wants to have some fun with Clayton. The rider agrees and the rider tells Frank to kill Clayton that they don’t have time to mess around. Suddenly Frank and Clayton begin to fight and then Frank pulls out his whip and gives Clayton a good thrashing. Clayton pulls Frank towards him and puts him in a headlock. The rider pulls his pistol, but Clayton tells him to drop it if he wants Frank alive. The rider shoots twice killing Frank while Clayton jumps for his gun and shoots the rider between the eyes.

This scene was filmed at the Rio Aguas a small stream, dominated by rock walls, near the village of Turre (five kilometers west of Mojacar) where scenes from "Red Sun" (1971) were also filmed.


For a more detailed view of this site and other Spaghetti Western locations please visit my friend Yoshi Yasuda’s location site: http://y-yasuda.net/film-location.htm and Captain Douglas Film Locations http://www.western-locations-spain.com/


Special Birthdays

Mario Siciliano (director, writer) would have been 100 today but died in 1987.









Klaus-Peter Thiele (actor) would have been 85 today but died in 2011.



Saturday, December 13, 2025

RIP Rolf Becker

 


German film, television and voice actor Rolf Becker died in Hamburg, Germany on December 12th. He was 90. Becker was born in Leipzig, Danzig Germany on March 31, 1935. He made his German television debut in 1962, appearing in TV movies (playing Charles Lindbergh in a dramatization of the Lindbergh baby kidnapping) and in the 1974 French co-produced anthology Les grands detectives (as Sherlock Holmes in "The Sign of Four," with Roger Lumont as Watson). He appeared over a dozen times on Tatort, including a recurring stint as prosecutor Maurer in the installments with Manfred Krug as investigator Stoever. His film credits include starring roles in “Cardillac” and “Ich liebe dich, ich töte dich” (I Love You, I Kill You), as well as supporting Diane Keaton in “The Little Drummer Girl”. His voice actor career began in the 1980s. He appeared as Noah Curry in the 1980 German western TV film “Der Regenmacher” (The Rainmaker).

From the WAI! vault