Franco Giraldi (11 July 1931 – 2 December 2020) was an Italian director and screenwriter.

Life and career

Born in

Komen Komen (, it, Comen or ''Comeno'') is a settlement in Slovenia. It is the seat of the Municipality of Komen. It is located on the Karst Plateau in the Slovenian Littoral. Name Komen was attested in written sources in 1247 as ''Cominum'' (and ...

, Giraldi spent his childhood and adolescence between the Carso, Trieste and Gorizia. During the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, still in minor age, he helped the

Italian partisans The Italian resistance movement (the ''Resistenza italiana'' and ''la Resistenza'') is an umbrella term for the Italian resistance groups who fought the occupying forces of Nazi Germany and the fascist collaborationists of the Italian Social ...

. His first professional contact with the world of cinema was as a film critic from the pages of the newspaper ''

L'Unità ''l'Unità'' (, lit. 'the Unity') was an Italian newspaper, founded as the official newspaper of the Italian Communist Party (PCI) in 1924. It was supportive of that party's successor parties, the Democratic Party of the Left, Democrats of the ...

''. Later Giraldi had the opportunity to work as assistant director of, among others,

Gillo Pontecorvo Gilberto Pontecorvo (; 19 November 1919 – 12 October 2006) was an Italian filmmaker associated with the political cinema movement of the 1960s and 1970s. He is best known for directing the landmark war docudrama ''The Battle of Algiers'' (19 ...

Giuseppe De Santis Giuseppe De Santis (11 February 1917 – 16 May 1997) was an Italian film director. One of the most idealistic neorealist filmmakers of the 1940s and 1950s, he wrote and directed films punctuated by ardent cries for social reform. He was ...

Sergio Corbucci Sergio Corbucci (; 6 December 1926 – 1 December 1990) was an Italian film director, screenwriter and producer. He directed both very violent Spaghetti Westerns and bloodless Bud Spencer and Terence Hill action comedies. He is the older bro ...

and

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 ...

. Shortly after his work with Leone in ''

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 ...

'' Giraldi directed his first

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 ...

, ''

Seven Guns for the MacGregors ''Seven Guns for the MacGregors'' ( it, Sette pistole per i MacGregor) is a Technicolor 1966 Spaghetti Western. It is the directorial debut film of Franco Giraldi (here credited as Frank Garfield), who was Sergio Leone's assistant in ''A Fistfu ...

'', released in 1966. After four westerns, in which he used the pseudonyms of Frank Garfield and Frank Prestand, in 1968 Giraldi directed his first film with his real name, the

commedia all'italiana Commedia all'italiana (, pl. Commedie all'italiana, "Comedy in the Italian way") or Italian-style comedy is an Italian film genre born in Italy in the 1950s and developed in the 1960s and 1970s. It is widely considered to have started with Mari ...

'' La bambolona''. After some other comedies he dedicated himself to

literary adaptation Literary adaptation is the adapting of a literary source (e.g. a novel, short story, poem) to another genre or medium, such as a film, stage play, or video game. It can also involve adapting the same literary work in the same genre or medium ju ...

s. Giraldo died from

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was COVID-19 pandemic in Hubei, identified in Wuhan, China, in December ...

on 2 December 2020, at the age of 89, during the

COVID-19 pandemic in Italy The COVID-19 pandemic in Italy is part of the ongoing pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 () caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (). The virus was first confirmed to have spread to Italy on 31 January 2020, when t ...

Filmography

* ''

'' (1966) * '' Sugar Colt'' (1967) * ''

Up the MacGregors! ''Up the MacGregors!'' ( it, 7 donne per i MacGregor, link=no, a Technicolor film in Techniscope also known as ''7 Women for the MacGregors'') is a List of Italian films of 1967, 1967 Cinema of Italy, Italian spaghetti Western directed by Franco ...

'' (1967) * '' A Minute to Pray, a Second to Die'' (1968) * '' La bambolona'' (1968) * '' Lonely Hearts'' (1970) * ''

La supertestimone ''La supertestimone'' is a 1971 Italian film directed by Franco Giraldi. For this film Monica Vitti was awarded with a Globo d'oro for Best Actress. Plot Marino Bottecchia, known as "Moccasin", lives on Tiziana, a prostitute his lover of whom ...

'' (1971) * ''

Gli ordini sono ordini ''Gli ordini sono ordini'' ("''Orders Are Orders''") is a 1972 Italian comedy film directed by Franco Giraldi. Plot Giorgia is an unhappy housewife tired of her marriage to her husband Amedeo, when she begins to hear a voice that orders her to ...

'' (1972) * '' La rosa rossa'' (1973) * '' Il lungo viaggio'' (1975) * ''

Colpita da improvviso benessere ''Colpita da improvviso benessere'' ("''Struck by sudden wealth''") is a 1976 Italian comedy film directed by Franco Giraldi. Plot Elisabetta is a fishwife with petty-bourgeois aspirations who lives more uxorio with Luiso Malerba, an anarchist ...

'' (1976) * ''

Un anno di scuola The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmonizi ...

'' (1977) * ''

La giacca verde LA most frequently refers to Los Angeles, the second largest city in the United States. La, LA, or L.A. may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Music * La (musical note), or A, the sixth note * "L.A.", a song by Elliott Smith on ''Figur ...

'' (1980) * ''

Il corsaro ''Il corsaro'' (''The Corsair'') is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi, from a libretto by Francesco Maria Piave, based on Lord Byron's 1814 poem ''The Corsair''. The first performance was given at the Teatro Grande in Trieste on 25 October ...

'' (1985) * '' The Border'' (1996) * ''

L'avvocato Porta ''L'avvocato Porta'' is an Italian crime television series directed by Franco Giraldi. Cast * Gigi Proietti: Lawyer Antonio Porta * Ornella Muti: Chiara * Fiorenzo Fiorentini: Mr. Costanzo * Ninetto Davoli: Remondino * Nicola Pistoia: Inspect ...

'' (TV-series, 1997–99) * '' Voci'' (2000) *''Delitto e Castigo'' (2007)

References

External links

* 1931 births People from the Municipality of Komen Italian film directors Italian male writers Spaghetti Western directors 2020 deaths Deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic in Friuli Venezia Giulia {{Italy-film-director-stub