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Gaspare Pisciotta
Gaspare Pisciotta (Montelepre, 5 March 1924 – Palermo, 9 February 1954) was a companion of the Sicilian bandit Salvatore Giuliano, and considered to be the co-leader of his outlaw band. He is also the Judas in Giuliano's legend as he betrayed Giuliano and killed him. Origins Gaspare Pisciotta, nicknamed Aspanu by friends, was born in Montelepre in Western Sicily in 1924. While Giuliano remained in Montelepre during the war, Pisciotta joined the army and was captured fighting against the Germans. He was released in 1945 and returned to Sicily, joining Giuliano's separatist campaign and thus being one of the founding members of his band. Trial Shortly after Giuliano's death on 5 July 1950, Pisciotta was captured and brought to trial for his crimes as a bandit. During the trial for the Portella della Ginestra massacre he made the startling revelation that it had been he who assassinated Giuliano in his sleep, a statement which contradicted the police account that Gi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Giuliano E Pisciotta
People with the Italian name, Italian given name or surname Giuliano () have included: In arts and entertainment Surname * Geoffrey Giuliano, American author * Maurizio Giuliano, writer and Guinness-record-holding traveler Given name * Giuliano Gemma, actor * Giuliano Đanić, Croatian pop-folk singer In crime * Luigi Giuliano, former Neapolitan Camorra boss and pentito * Salvatore Giuliano, Sicilian bandit In politics Surname * Carla Giuliano, Italian MP *Neil Giuliano, former mayor of Tempe, Arizona, US * Sebastian Giuliano, mayor of Middletown, Connecticut, US Given name * Giuliano Amato, former prime minister of Italy * Giuliano Poletti, Italian politician * Giuliano Urbani, Italian politician In sport Surname * Carmelo Giuliano, Argentine footballer * Luigi Giuliano (footballer), Italian international footballer Given name * Giuliano de Paula, Brazilian footballer known mononymously as Giuliano * Giuliano Alesi, French racing driver In other fields * Giuliano de' Medici, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Strychnine
Strychnine (, , US chiefly ) is a highly toxic, colorless, bitter, crystalline alkaloid used as a pesticide, particularly for killing small vertebrates such as birds and rodents. Strychnine, when inhaled, swallowed, or absorbed through the eyes or mouth, causes poisoning which results in muscular convulsions and eventually death through asphyxia. While it is no longer used medicinally, it was used historically in small doses to strengthen muscle contractions, such as a heart and bowel stimulant and performance-enhancing drug. The most common source is from the seeds of the ''Strychnos nux-vomica'' tree. Biosynthesis Strychnine is a terpene indole alkaloid belonging to the ''Strychnos'' family of '' Corynanthe'' alkaloids, and it is derived from tryptamine and secologanin. The biosynthesis of strychine was solved in 2022. The enzyme, strictosidine synthase, catalyzes the condensation of tryptamine and secologanin, followed by a Pictet-Spengler reaction to form strictosidine ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Turturro
John Michael Turturro (; born February 28, 1957) is an American actor and filmmaker. He is known for his contributions to the independent film movement. He has appeared in over sixty feature films and has worked frequently with the Coen brothers, Adam Sandler, and Spike Lee. He began his acting career on-screen in the early 1980s, and received early critical recognition with the independent film '' Five Corners'' (1987). Turturro's mainstream breakthrough came with Lee's ''Do the Right Thing'' (1989) and the Coens' '' Miller's Crossing'' (1990) and ''Barton Fink'' (1991), for which he won the Best Actor Award at the Cannes Film Festival. His subsequent roles included Herb Stempel in ''Quiz Show'' (1994), Jesus Quintana in both ''The Big Lebowski'' (1998) and ''The Jesus Rolls'' (2020), Pete in ''O Brother, Where Art Thou?'' (2000), Seymour Simmons in the ''Transformers'' film series (2007–2017) and Carmine Falcone in ''The Batman'' (2022). In 2016, in a lead role, he portrayed a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Christopher Lambert
Christophe Guy Denis "Christopher" Lambert (; ; born March 29, 1957) is a French-American actor, producer, and novelist. He started his career playing supporting parts in several French films, and became internationally famous for portraying Tarzan in '' Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes'' (1984). For his performance in the film '' Subway'' (1985), he received the César Award for Best Actor. His most famous role is Connor MacLeod in the adventure-fantasy film '' Highlander'' (1986) and the subsequent franchise of the same name. Lambert's other notable film roles include '' I Love You'' (1986), '' The Sicilian'' (1987), '' Knight Moves'' (1992), ''Fortress'' (1992) and its sequel '' Fortress 2: Re-Entry'' (2000), '' Mortal Kombat'' (1995), ''Druids'' (2001), '' Absolon'' (2003), '' White Material'' (2009), '' Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance'' (2011), and '' Kickboxer: Retaliation'' (2018). He also produced the films ''Don't Forget You're Going to Die'' (1995), ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Michael Cimino
Michael Antonio Cimino ( ; February 3, 1939 – July 2, 2016) was an American filmmaker. One of the "New Hollywood" directors, Cimino achieved fame with ''The Deer Hunter'' (1978), which won five Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director. Born in New York City, Cimino began his career filming commercials and moved to Los Angeles to take up screenwriting in 1971. After co-writing the scripts of ''Silent Running'' (1972) and ''Magnum Force'' (1973), he wrote the preliminary script for ''Thunderbolt and Lightfoot'' (1974), which became his directorial debut, and one of the highest-grossing films of its year. The critical accolades for co-writing, directing, and producing ''The Deer Hunter'' in 1978 led to Cimino receiving creative control for '' Heaven's Gate'' (1980). The film became a critical failure and a legendary box-office bomb, which lost production studio United Artists an estimated $37 million. Its failure was widely credited with Hollywood studios shifting ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Sicilian (film)
''The Sicilian'' is a 1987 epic historical drama film directed and co-produced by Michael Cimino. The film was adapted by Steve Shagan and an uncredited Gore Vidal from Mario Puzo's 1984 novel of the same name. Christopher Lambert stars as Salvatore Giuliano, the infamous bandit who tried to liberate early 1950s Sicily from Italian rule. The film also stars Terence Stamp, Joss Ackland, John Turturro and Barbara Sukowa. Plot Salvatore Giuliano, an infamous bandit, together with his ragtag band of guerrillas, attempted to liberate early 1950s Sicily from Italian rule and make it an American state. Giuliano robs from the rich landowners to give to the peasants, who in turn hail him as their savior. As his popularity grows, so does his ego, and he eventually thinks he is above the power of his backer, Mafia Don Masino Croce. Don Croce, in turn, sets out to kill the upstart by convincing his cousin and closest adviser Gaspare "Aspanu" Pisciotta to assassinate him. Cast *Christo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Godfather (novel)
''The Godfather'' is a crime novel by American author Mario Puzo. Originally published in 1969 by G. P. Putnam's Sons, the novel details the story of a fictional Mafia family in New York City (and Long Island), headed by Vito Corleone, the Godfather. The novel covers the years 1945 to 1955 and includes the back story of Vito Corleone from early childhood to adulthood. The first in a series of novels, ''The Godfather'' is noteworthy for introducing Italian words like ''consigliere'', ''caporegime'', ''Cosa Nostra'', and ''omertà'' to an English-speaking audience. It inspired a 1972 film of the same name. Two film sequels, including new contributions by Puzo himself, were made in 1974 and 1990. Summary The Corleone family, one of the Five Families of the New York Mafia, fights the other four families in a brutal war in the years after World War II. After Don Vito Corleone is shot by men working for drug kingpin Virgil "The Turk" Sollozzo, two of Corleone's sons, Santino (Sonny ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Sicilian
''The Sicilian'' is a novel by American author Mario Puzo. Published in 1984 by Random House Publishing Group (), it is based on the life of Sicilian bandit Salvatore Giuliano. It is set in the same universe as Puzo's most famous work, ''The Godfather'' (1969), and contains characters from ''The Godfather''. It is regarded as ''The Godfather''s literary sequel and is the second book in ''The Godfather'' novel series. It was adapted into a film in 1987, though all '' Godfather'' references were removed for copyright reasons in the film adaptation. In this novel, the spelling of Salvatore Giuliano's name was intentionally changed by Puzo to "Guiliano". This novel, though a work of fiction, is based on the real life exploits of Giuliano. Plot In 1950, Michael Corleone, the son of Sicilian-American Mafia Don Vito Corleone, is preparing to return home to America after his exile in Sicily. He meets with Don Croce Malo, the most powerful Sicilian Mafia boss. Don Croce and Michael ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mario Puzo
Mario Francis Puzo (; ; October 15, 1920 – July 2, 1999) was an American author, screenwriter, and journalist. He is known for his crime novels about the Italian-American Mafia and Sicilian Mafia, most notably ''The Godfather'' (1969), which he later co-adapted into a film trilogy directed by Francis Ford Coppola. He received the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for the first film in 1972 and for ''Part II'' in 1974. Puzo also wrote the original screenplay for the 1978 '' Superman'' film and its 1980 sequel. His final novel, '' The Family'', was released posthumously in 2001. Personal life Puzo was born in the Hell's Kitchen section of New York City to Italian immigrants from Pietradefusi, Province of Avellino, Campania. When Puzo was 12, his father, who worked as a trackman for the New York Central Railroad, was committed to the Pilgrim State Hospital insane asylum for schizophrenia, and his wife, Maria, was left to raise their seven children. He served in the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Frank Wolff (actor)
Walter Frank Hermann Wolff (May 11, 1928 – December 12, 1971) was an American actor whose film career began with roles in five 1958–61 Roger Corman productions and ended a decade later in Rome, after many appearances in European-made films, most of which were lensed in Italy. Early life A native of San Francisco, California, Wolff was the son of a Bay Area physician. Both parents were of German descent. The elder Wolff, a political and social maverick, encouraged young Frank to follow an unconventional path. He attended University of California, Los Angeles, where he studied acting and stagecraft, wrote and directed plays and befriended another actor/director, Monte Hellman. Between 1957 and 1961, he appeared in nearly 20 episodes of TV series and feature films, a few of which fit into the horror/science fiction genre. Career with Roger Corman Wolff had bit roles in his first two films, Roger Corman's ''I Mobster'' and ''The Wasp Woman''. The former, a 1958 black-and-wh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Salvatore Giuliano (film)
''Salvatore Giuliano'' is a 1962 Italian film directed by Francesco Rosi. Shot in a neo-realist documentary, non-linear style, it follows the lives of those involved with the famous Sicilian bandit Salvatore Giuliano. Giuliano is mostly off-screen during the film and appears most notably as a corpse. Reception Derek Malcolm called it "almost certainly the best film about the social and political forces that have shaped Sicily, that benighted island." Gino Moliterno argued that "Rosi's highly original strategy in this landmark film is to aim at neither an "objective" journalistic documentary nor a fictional recreation but to employ as wide a range of disparate formal and stylistic elements as necessary to conduct a committed search for the truth that becomes, in a sense, its own narrative." David Gurevich said that "Rosi marries the neo-realist, black-and-white, populist aesthetic to the mad media circus of ''La Dolce Vita'', tosses in some minimalist alienation from Antonio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Francesco Rosi
Francesco Rosi (; 15 November 1922 – 10 January 2015) was an Italian film director. His film ''The Mattei Affair'' won the Palme d'Or at the 1972 Cannes Film Festival. Rosi's films, especially those of the 1960s and 1970s, often appeared to have political messages. While the topics for his later films became less politically oriented and more angled toward literature, he continued to direct until 1997, his last film being the adaptation of Primo Levi's book, ''The Truce''. At the 2008 Berlin International Film Festival 13 of his films were screened, in a section reserved for film-makers of outstanding quality and achievement. He received the Honorary Golden Bear for Lifetime Achievement, accompanied by the screening of his 1962 film '' Salvatore Giuliano''. In 2012 the Venice Biennale awarded Rosi the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement. Biography Origins and early career Rosi was born in Naples in 1922. His father worked in the shipping industry, but was also a cartoonist a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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