Tomás Milián (March 3, 1932 - March 22, 2017) was a Cuban-American actor best known for having worked extensively in Italian films from the late 1950s to the 1980s.
Career in Italy[]
Tomás Milián was born in Havana as Tomás Quintín Rodríguez, the son of a Cuban general. His father was arrested and jailed after Fulgencio Batista took power in Cuba: he later committed suicide. Milián then decided to leave Cuba and pursue his wishes of being an actor[1]. He settled in the United States to study at New York's Actor's Studio[2] and later became an American citizen.
After starting a career in the United States, he went to Italy in 1958 to take part to a theater festival in Spoleto[3]. He eventually decided to relocate to Italy, where he lived for over 25 years, gradually becoming a very successful performer. His first film part in Italy was in the 1959 picture La Notte brava. Although his voice was dubbed most of the time due to his accent, Milián performed his lines in Italian (or in English, depending on the film). He initially starred in arthouse movies and worked with directors such as Mauro Bolognini and Luchino Visconti[4].
After five years of making what he deemed "intellectual" movies, Milián was unhappy with his contract with producer Franco Cristaldi and thought of going back to the United States. Needing money to start over, he took the opportunity to star as a bandit in a spaghetti western called The Bounty Killer. This movie gave his career an unexpected boost[5], and ultimately resulted in his staying to Italy. Milián soon became a star of the spaghetti western genre[6], where he often played Mexican bandits or revolutionaries, roles in which he spoke in his real voice. As the spaghetti westerns dwindled, Milián remained a star in many genre films, playing both villains and heroes in various poliziotteschi movies. He starred with Barbara Bouchet in the giallo Non si sevizia un paperino.
He later turned to comedy, playing the recurrent characters of petty thief Monnezza and Serpico-like police officer Nico Giraldi in a variety of crime-comedy pictures. Although his voice was dubbed most of the time by Ferruccio Amendola, Milián wrote his own lines in Roman slang. Milián's inventive use of romanesco (roman dialect) made him somewhat of a cult performer in Italy, even though his later films were critically panned. Bruno Corbucci, the director of many of these films commented, "At the cinemas as soon as Tomás Milián appeared on the screen, when he made a wisecrack and in the heaviest situations, then it was a pandemonium, it was like being at the stadium." As Milián used similar makeups and accents in portraying both characters, Monnezza and Nico were occasionally confused by Italian audiences, who sometimes referred erroneously to them both as Monnezza, or Er Monnezza (Da trash in slang), and still closely associate Milián with these performances[7]. Milián also occasionally appeared in non-genre pictures, such as Bernardo Bertolucci's La Luna, for which he won a Nastro d'Argento for Best supporting Actor, and Michelangelo Antonioni's Identification of a Woman.
Later career[]
As he grew older, Milián found himself less in demand and eventually decided to go back to the U.S., where he pursued a career as a character actor. He appeared in Sidney Pollack's Havana, Steven Spielberg's Amistad, Steven Soderbergh's Traffic as well as Andy García's The Lost City, about Revolutionary Cuba. He has also played many roles on stage. He portrayed Generalisimo Rafael Leonidas Trujillo Molina in the film version of Mario Vargas Llosa's novel The Feast of the Goat.
Tomás Milián resided in Miami, Florida.
Death[]
Milián was found dead from a stroke at his home in Miami on 22 March 2017.
On October 11, 2017 he received the Leone in Memoriam award at the 7º Almería Western Film Festival. It was picked up by his friend Luis Santeiro.
Partial filmography[]
- Il bell'Antonio (1960, Mauro Bolognini) - with Marcello Mastroianni, Pierre Brasseur
- Boccaccio '70 (1962, Luchino Visconti) - with Romy Schneider
- La resa dei conti (1966, Sergio Sollima) - with Lee Van Cleef
- Faccia a faccia (1967, Sergio Sollima) - with Gian Maria Volonté
- Se sei vivo spara (1967, Giulio Questi) - with Ray Lovelock
- Bandits in Milan (1968)
- Death Sentence (1968)
- Corri uomo corri (1968, Sergio Sollima)
- Tepepa (1968, Giulio Petroni) - with Orson Welles
- Vamos a matar, compañeros (1970, Sergio Corbucci) - with Franco Nero, Jack Palance and Fernando Rey
- The Last Movie (1971, Dennis Hopper)
- Non si sevizia un paperino (1972, Lucio Fulci)
- Milano odia: la polizia non può sparare (1974, Umberto Lenzi) - with Henry Silva
- La polizia accusa: il servizio segreto uccide (1975, Sergio Martino) - with Mel Ferrer and Luc Merenda
- Il giustiziere sfida la città (1975, Umberto Lenzi)
- I quattro dell'apocalisse (1975, Lucio Fulci) - with Fabio Testi
- Roma a mano armata (1976, Umberto Lenzi) - with Maurizio Merli
- Squadra antiscippo (1976, Bruno Corbucci) - with Jack Palance
- Squadra antifurto (1976, Bruno Corbucci)
- Il trucido e lo sbirro (1977, Umberto Lenzi) - with Claudio Cassinelli, Nicoletta Machiavelli
- La banda del gobbo (1977, Umberto Lenzi) - with Maurizio Merli
- La banda del trucido (1977, Stelvio Massi) - with Luc Merenda
- Squadra antitruffa (197, Bruno Corbucci) - with David Hemmings
- Squadra antimafia (1978, Bruno Corbucci) - with Alberto Farnese, Lilli Carati, Roberto Messina
- Squadra antigangsters (1979, Bruno Corbucci)- with Asha Puthli
- Assassinio sul Tevere (1979, Bruno Corbucci)
- La Luna (1979, Bernardo Bertolucci)
- Delitto a Porta Romana (1980, Bruno Corbucci)
- Manolesta (1981, Pasquale Festa Campanile) - with Giovanna Ralli
- Delitto al ristorante cinese (1981, Bruno Corbucci)
- Delitto sull'autostrada (1982, Bruno Corbucci)
- Identification of a Woman (1982, Michelangelo Antonioni)
- Cane e gatto (1982 Bruno Corbucci) with Bud Spencer
- Delitto in Formula Uno (1983, Bruno Corbucci)
- Delitto al Blue Gay (1984, Bruno Corbucci)
- Cat Chaser (1989)
- Revenge (1990, Tony Scott)
- Money (1991, Steven Hilliard Stern)
- JFK (1991, Oliver Stone)
- Amistad (1997, Steven Spielberg) - with Djimon Hounsou, Morgan Freeman, Anthony Hopkins
- Traffic (2000, Steven Soderbergh) - with Michael Douglas, Benicio del Toro
- The Yards (2000, James Gray) - with Mark Wahlberg, Charlize Theron
- The Hire: Ambush (2001, John Frankenheimer) - with Clive Owen
- Washington Heights (2002)
- The Lost City (2005, Andy García) - with Andy García, Inés Sastre, Dustin Hoffman, Bill Murray
References[]
- ↑ Tomas Milian biography at Virgilio.it
- ↑ Tomas Milian ancora sbirro. Per fiction, Corriere della sera, 29 december 2009
- ↑ Tomas Milian biography
- ↑ Tomas Milian biography at Virgilio.it
- ↑ Tomás Milián interview
- ↑ Tomas Milian orgullo de los cubanos en Miami
- ↑ «Er Monnezza» finisce sulla Treccani, Corriere della Sera, 6 october 2004
External links[]
- Tomás Milián at the Internet Movie Database}
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