Duccio Tessari (11 October 1926 – 6 September 1994) was an Italian director, screenwriter and actor, considered one of the fathers of

Spaghetti Western The Spaghetti Western is a broad subgenre of Western films produced in Europe. It emerged in the mid-1960s in the wake of Sergio Leone's film-making style and international box-office success. The term was used by foreign critics because most o ...

s. Born in

Genoa Genoa ( ; it, Genova ; lij, Zêna ). is the capital of the Italian region of Liguria and the List of cities in Italy, sixth-largest city in Italy. In 2015, 594,733 people lived within the city's administrative limits. As of the 2011 Italian ce ...

, Tessari started in the fifties as documentarist and as screenwriter of

peplum films Peplum originates in the Greek word for 'tunic' and may refer to one of the following: * Sword-and-sandal films, a genre of Greco-Roman era costume adventure films, mostly made in Italy, also known as "peplum". * ''Péplum'' (novel), a 1996 work by ...

. In 1964 he co-wrote

Sergio Leone Sergio Leone (; 3 January 1929 – 30 April 1989) was an Italian film director, producer and screenwriter credited as the pioneer of the Spaghetti Western genre and widely regarded as one of the most influential directors in the history of cin ...

's ''

A Fistful of Dollars ''A Fistful of Dollars'' ( it, Per un pugno di dollari, lit=For a Fistful of Dollars titled on-screen as ''Fistful of Dollars'') is a 1964 Spaghetti Western film directed by Sergio Leone and starring Clint Eastwood in his first leading role, a ...

'', one year later he gained an impressive commercial success and launched the Giuliano Gemma's career with ''

A Pistol for Ringo ''A Pistol for Ringo'' ( it, Una pistola per Ringo) is a 1965 Spaghetti Western, a joint Italian and Spanish production. Originally written and directed by Duccio Tessari, the film's success led to a sequel, ''The Return of Ringo'', later that y ...

'' and its immediate sequel, ''

The Return of Ringo ''The Return of Ringo'' ( it, Il ritorno di Ringo) is a 1965 Italian Spaghetti Western film directed by Duccio Tessari and the sequel to the earlier film ''A Pistol for Ringo''. Like its predecessor, the film features a score composed by Ennio Mo ...

''. He later touched different genres and worked in

RAI TV RAI – Radiotelevisione italiana (; commercially styled as Rai since 2000; known until 1954 as Radio Audizioni Italiane) is the national public broadcasting company of Italy, owned by the Ministry of Economy and Finance. RAI operates many ter ...

, directing some successful TV-series. He died of cancer in Rome, at 67. He was married to actress

Lorella De Luca Lorella De Luca (17 September 1940 – 9 January 2014) was an Italian film, television, and voice actress. One of the most recognized ingenues of Italian cinema during the mid-to-late 1950s, she is best known for having played naive young girls ...

Filmography

:Note: The films listed as N/A are not necessarily chronological.

References

Bibliography

* * * * * * *

External links

* 1926 births Film people from Genoa 1994 deaths Italian film directors 20th-century Italian screenwriters Italian male screenwriters Spaghetti Western directors Deaths from cancer in Lazio Giallo film directors 20th-century Italian male writers {{Italy-film-director-stub