On Bud Spencer’s 95th birthday: He was more than a cult actor

He is famous for his films, but Bud Spencer aka Carlo Pedersoli (1929-2016) saw himself as more than just an actor. His Olympic adventure was obviously much more important to him than his screen appearances. This was revealed by Bud Spencer’s son, who would have been 95 years old today, October 31st.

Carlo Pedersoli, who was born in a suburb of Naples and later moved to Rome with his family, showed a talent for swimming at an early age. After going to South America with his family for two years, he returned to Italy in 1949 and enjoyed success in water polo and as a professional swimmer. In 1952 Pedersoli swam at the Summer Olympics in Helsinki and reached the semifinals in the 100 m freestyle. Four years later in Melbourne he made it to the Olympic semi-finals again. His son Giuseppe Pedersoli (63) explained in an interview with “Corriere della Sera”: His father said little about his work as an actor. “He was much more enthusiastic about sporting achievements, about the adventure at the Olympic Games, which was perhaps the happiest moment of his life.”

Pedersoli’s film career started almost at the same time as his sporting career. While he ended his swimming career in 1957, the camera accompanied him almost his entire life. The future Bud Spencer had his first film roles in 1950. In the 1950s and early 1960s he had smaller appearances in Italian films. During this phase of his life, he also completed his law studies and started a family. Spencer married Maria Amato in 1960, with whom he had three children: Giuseppe (born 1961), Cristiana (1962) and Diamante (1972). He also wrote film music and produced documentaries – until his big breakthrough came.

In 1967, the film director Giuseppe Colizzi (1925-1978) offered him a role in the western “God Never Forgives… Django!” to. Pedersoli met Mario Girotti (85) while filming. Colizzi asked the two actors to change their names because he thought they sounded too Italian for a Western: Pedersoli chose Bud Spencer, choosing Bud after Budweiser beer and Spencer after actor Spencer Tracy . Mario Girotti became Terence Hill and the two became one of the most legendary film duos in the world.

“Dad called him Mario – the only one who could – he called him Carlo,” Bud Spencer’s son told Corriere della Sera about the two. “Outside of filming, they were two big, shy guys who didn’t really know what to do with each other. Terence is nice and friendly, but very introverted. And when he wasn’t working, he lived in the United States.” The two stars went out to dinner together three times in their lives. “Every now and then he came for mother’s spaghetti. But on the screen they were transformed, there were real emotions between them, a perfect harmony had been created.”

The western comedy “The Devil’s Right and Left Hands” (1970) was a great success for the duo. With “Four Fists for a Hallelujah” at the latest, Hill and Spencer became legends together in 1971. The two stars made a total of 18 films together. But their great success also came at a price… Giuseppe Pedersoli said that from 1967 onwards his father made three or four films a year. “He was gone for ten or eleven months. We almost never saw him. When he came back, he was busy us with gifts.” He and Terence’s success came so quickly that they were not prepared for it.

What his son also revealed to the “Corriere della Sera”: His father was very short-sighted and wore thick glasses. “He had to take them off to shoot, he could hardly see anything, but he still wanted to shoot these scenes without a stuntman, I don’t know how he managed it.”

During the filming of “Two Dogs of Heaven on the Way to Hell” (1972) in Colombia, Bud Spencer was flown to the set in a small plane for twenty minutes – which apparently made him want to get behind the wheel himself. “After a month he had learned how to fly,” said his son. “Flying was an overwhelming passion for him.”

And Giuseppe Pedersoli also revealed what Bud Spencer didn’t like: diets weren’t for the actor. His father always needed a load of spaghetti, oil and tomatoes. “If you made him two kilos of pasta, he could eat it all.” Pedersoli revealed that his father had canceled two treatments in Switzerland.

From the mid-1980s onwards, Bud Spencer, who also enjoyed success without Terence Hill with, among other things, the “Plattfuß” series, increasingly worked on television. He also wrote several autobiographical books and tried unsuccessfully to gain a foothold in politics.

In 2016, his fans had to say goodbye to Bud Spencer: the actor, musician, inventor and swimmer died in Rome at the age of 86. “He was neither a saint nor a star, but a family man. His last word was ‘Thank you,'” his son explained. Terence Hill was also hit hard by the death of his long-time film partner and friend Bud Spencer. “I lost my best friend, I’m shocked,” he told Corriere della Sera.