SOURCE:
NEW YORK TIMESURL:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/29/movies/bud-spencer-the-good-giant-of-spaghetti-westerns-dies-at-86.html?_r=0
Bud Spencer (right) with Terence Hill in “Trinity Is Still My Name.”
Bud Spencer, a burly comic actor known as the “good giant” for punching out bad guys on the screen in a series of spaghetti westerns, died on Monday in Italy. He was 86.
His son, Giuseppe Pedersoli, confirmed his death to the Italian news agency ANSA, but did not say where he died or specify the cause.
Born in Naples on Oct. 31, 1929, Carlo Pedersoli adopted the screen name Bud Spencer — the first name inspired by a beer and the last to honor his favorite star, Spencer Tracy.
In his youth, Mr. Spencer was an athlete, becoming the first Italian to swim the 100-meter freestyle in under a minute.
His roles exploited his physical strength, especially his big frame and girth. His imposing figure earned him a walk-on part as a Praetorian guard in the 1951 film “Quo Vadis?”
Mr. Spencer abandoned his swimming career after the 1960 Olympics in Rome. Working on a 1967 film, “Dio Perdona Io No” (“God Forgives, I Don’t”), he met Mario Girotti, who would take the screen name Terence Hill and become his frequent movie partner in spaghetti westerns.
A review of “They Call Me Trinity” in 1972 in The New York Times described Mr. Spencer as “a grizzled bear of a man” and said that he and Mr. Hill “couldn’t be more likable.”
Mr. Spencer, who had a law degree, made his name in unmistakably lowbrow films.
After he made a film with the Italian director Ermanno Olmi in 2003, Mr. Spencer confessed that it was perhaps the first time he felt he was an actor. “I always said that I was only a character,” he said.
