The Loving Memory of
Bud Spencer
Carlo Pedersoli, known as Bud
Spencer, born October 31, 1929 in Santa Lucia, son of Alessandro Pedersoli and
Rosa Facchetti, is an Italian actor, professional swimmer, and water polo
player. He is best known for his action-comedy and spaghetti western roles
alongside his longtime partner and friend Terence Hill. Both "gained
worldwide acclaim and drew millions to theater seats". Spencer and Hill
starred in 18 films together.
He played many sports, showed
swimming skills, and won prizes. De Crescenzo was his classmate. In 1940,
because of his father's work, he moved to Rome, where he attended high school
and joined a swimming club. He finished school with high marks before his
seventeenth birthday and enrolled at the Sapienza University of Rome, where he
studied chemistry. In 1947, the family moved to South America and Bud Spencer
stopped studying. From 1947 to 1949 he worked at the Italian Consulate in
Brazil, where he learned to speak Portuguese fluently.
Bud Spencer returned to Italy
in 1949 to play water polo in Rome for Societa Sportiva Lazio Nuoto, winning
the Italian swimming championships in the freestyle and mixed relay teams. As a
professional swimmer in his youth, Spencer became the first Italian to swim the
100m freestyle in under a minute when he swam 59.5 seconds in Salsomaggiore on
19 September 1950. He made his international debut in 1949 and was invited to
the European Championships in Vienna a year later, where he swam in two finals,
finishing fifth in the 100m and fourth in the 4 × 200m relay.
At the 1951 Mediterranean
Games in Alexandria (Egypt), he won a silver medal in the same 100m freestyle
event. Spencer competed at the 1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki, Finland,
reaching the semifinals of the 100 m freestyle. Four years later, in Melbourne,
he reached the semifinals in the same category.
As a water polo player, he
won the Italian championship with SS Lazio in 1954 and a gold medal with the
Italian national team at the 1955 Mediterranean Games in Barcelona. His
swimming career came to an abrupt end in 1957.
On 17 January 2005, the
Italian Swimming Federation honored him with the Caimano d'Oro (Golden Cayman).
On 24 January 2007, he received his swimming and water polo coaching diplomas
from Italian Swimming Federation, President Paolo Bareilly.
In his youth, Bud Spencer was
a successful athlete and swimmer for Grupo Sportivo Fiamma Oro. He earned a law
degree and registered several patents. Spencer became a certified commercial
airline and helicopter pilot and supported and funded several children's
charities, including the Spencer Scholarship Fund.
Spencer's first film role was
in the 1950 Italian comedy short Qual Fantasma di Mio Marito. In 1951, he
played a member of the Praetorian Guard in Quo Vadis, an epic Italian film
produced by MGM and directed by Mervyn Leroy. In the 1950s and early 1960s,
Spencer acted in small parts in Italian, including Mario Monicelli's A Hero of
Our Times with Alberto Sordi and the 1954 war film Human Torpedoes with Raf Vallone.
In 1960, after the Summer
Olympics, Spencer married Maria Amato, daughter of Italian film producer
Giuseppe Amato. Signed to RCA Records to write lyrics and soundtracks for
singers such as Ornella Vanoni and Nico Fidenko. In the years that followed,
his son Giuseppe was born in 1961, followed by Christiana in 1962, his contract
with RCA expired, and his father-in-law died in 1964. Spencer became a producer
of documentaries for RAI, the national public broadcaster.
In 1967, film director
Giuseppe Collisi offered him a role in God Forgives... Not Me! On set, Spencer
meets Terrence Hill. Although Spencer had previously met Hill on the set of
Hannibal in 1959, that was the moment they became a movie couple. Considering
it too Italian for a Western Italian comparison, the film director asked two
actors to change their names: Pedersoli chose Bud Spencer, inspired by
Budweiser beer, and actor Spencer Tracy.
While Hill's characters were
lively and youthful, Spencer always portrayed "a grumpy, grumpy strong-arm
man with a blessed, innocent child's laugh and a heart of gold." In total,
Hill and Spencer worked on 18 films together, including the spaghetti western
Call Me Trinity in 1970 and its sequel Trinity Is Still My Name in 1971. Their
last group, the Troublemakers in 1994, was in this genre.
In the Italian versions of
his films, Spencer is usually voiced by actor Glacco Onorato due to his thick
Naples accent, although he was voiced by Sergio Fiorentini in Troublemakers, To
the Limit in 1997, and the Extralarge series in 1991–93. For the English dubs,
Spencer was usually voiced by Robert Sommer, Edward Mannix, or Richard
McNamara, although he occasionally provided his own voice.
Spencer wrote the screenplays
for some of his films in whole or in part. After 1983, his film career waned
and he moved to television. In the 1990s, he starred in the television action
drama Extralarge. His autobiography was published in 2011. In addition, Spencer
published a recipe book including his favorite dishes.
He entered politics in 2005,
unsuccessfully standing as regional councilor in Lazio for the Forza Italia
party. Spencer said: "In my life, I've done everything. There are only
three things I'm not - a ballet dancer, a jockey, and a politician. The first
two jobs are out of the question, so I will push myself into politics."
The opposition criticized him for engaging in "political spettacolo" which
means "showbiz politics".
Spencer married Maria Amato
in 1960, and they had three children: Giuseppe, Christiana, and Diamante. After appearing in Piu forte, ragazzi! Spencer became a jet
airplane and helicopter pilot. He founded Nistral Air in 1984,
an air-mail company that also transports pilgrims, but later sold it
to Post-Italian. Spencer's grandson, Carlo
Pederzoli Jr., is a mixed martial arts fighter currently signed to the Ultimate
Fighting Championship.
Spencer died in Rome on 27
June 2016 at the age of 86. Spencer's son Giuseppe Pedersoli said, "Dad
died painlessly in front of the family and his last words were 'crazy.' He was
buried in the Campo Verano Cemetery in Rome.
Spencer was posthumously
awarded the 2018 America Award by the Italy-America Foundation.
In Hungary, where his films
were very popular during communist rule, a larger-than-life-sized bronze statue
of Spencer created by sculptor Szandra Tasnady, attended by Spencer's daughter
Christiana, was unveiled in Budapest on 11 November 2017. The statue's plinth
reads "Mi sohasem veszekedtünk" which means "We never
fought", a quote from Terrence Hill's eulogy, referring to their longtime
friendship and partnership.
Bud Spencer Museum opens in
Berlin in 2021.
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