Rik Battaglia
Rik Battaglia (also Rick Battaglia , but actually Caterino Bertaglia ; born February 18, 1927 in Corbola , province of Rovigo ; † March 27, 2015 ibid) was an Italian actor .
Life
Battaglia never met his father and rarely saw his mother. He grew up with his grandmother. At the age of 17 he was a sailor on a cargo ship between Corfu and the Black Sea .
Battaglia, previously discovered by a talent scout in a bar and immediately engaged by Sophia Loren's husband Carlo Ponti , became famous when he starred with Sophia Loren in the 1955 film The Woman from the River ( La Donna del fiume ). After the success of the film, Battaglia attended the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia for two years and graduated as the best of the year.
A large number of costume and sandal films followed until Battaglia played the title character in the German Karl May film Der Schut in 1964 . Battaglia subsequently played the villain in six other Karl May films. Only in Winnetou and his friend Old Firehand (1966) was he the cast of a righteous figure.
Battaglia also had a fan base in Germany during those years. This changed suddenly when he became Winnetou's killer through his role as Rollins in Winnetou Part 3 . The audience treated him very cautiously, and he was visibly avoided when appearing at German events. For years he was addressed as "the man who shot Winnetou".
After the Karl May films, Battaglia was seen in many spaghetti westerns, for example in On his knees, Django or at the side of his former Karl May film colleague Terence Hill in 1975 in Nobody Is the Greatest . He stayed true to the genre to the end and played in late classics such as Mannaja - The ax of death (1977).
In 1972 he was seen alongside Orson Welles in Treasure Island . During these years his roles became increasingly smaller. In the 1980s he was seen in some of the melodramas with Mario Merola or Nino D'Angelo that were shot for the regional Neapolitan market . His last appearance was for German television: in 1999 he played the sexton in a Pumuckl episode.
In 1995 Battaglia was awarded the Scharlih , the oldest award associated with Karl May , for his services to the Karl May film series . He died on March 27, 2015, just under two months before Winnetou actor Pierre Brice , in his hometown of Corbola at the age of 88.
Filmography (selection)
- 1954: The Woman from the River (La donna del fiume) - Director: Mario Soldati
- 1956: Orlando ei Paladini di Francia - Director: Pietro Francisci
- 1956: The rice girl (La risaia) - directed by Raffaello Matarazzo
- 1957: The betrothed of death (I fidanzati della morte)
- 1957: Liane, the white slave
- 1958: Naked as God made her (Nudi come Dio li creò)
- 1958: Storm over Eden (Raw Wind in Eden) - Director: Richard Wilson
- 1958: Clorinda, the Saraceness (La Gerusalemme liberata) - directed by Carlo Ludovico Bragaglia
- 1959: The Prisoner of the Saracens (I Reali di Francia) - Director: Mario Costa
- 1959: Volga boatman (I battellieri del Volga)
- 1960: Hannibal (Annibale)
- 1960: Battle of Babylon (Il conquistatore dell'Oriente) - Director: Tanio Boccia
- 1960: The Sword of Persia (Ester e il re)
- 1960: Theseus, hero of Hellas (Teseo contro il Minotauro)
- 1962: Julius Caesar, the tyrant of Rome (Giulio Cesare, il conquistatore delle Gallie) - Director: Tanio Boccia
- 1962: Cleopatra, the naked queen of the Nile (Una regina per Cesare) - Director: Viktor Tourjansky
- 1962: Sodom and Gomorrah (Sodoma e Gomorrah)
- 1963: The Lion of San Marco (Il leone di San Marco) - Director: Luigi Capuano
- 1963: Sandokan (Sandokan, la tigre di Mompracem) - Director: Umberto Lenzi
- 1964: The Schut
- 1964: Old Shatterhand
- 1964: Freddy and the Song of the Prairie
- 1965: The Aztec Treasure
- 1965: The pyramid of the sun god
- 1965: Gli amanti d'oltretomba - Director: Mario Caiano
- 1965: The Adventurer of Tortuga (L'avventuriero della tortuga) - Directed by Luigi Capuano
- 1965: Winnetou 3rd part
- 1966: The legacy of the Inca
- 1966: Winnetou and his friend Old Firehand
- 1967: Fire on Frankie
- 1968: On your knees, Django (Black Jack)
- 1968: In the dust of the sun (Spara, gringo, spara)
- 1968: Radhapura - the end of the line for the damned
- 1968: His Winchester whistles the song of death (I lunghi giorni dell'odio)
- 1968: Winnetou and Shatterhand in the Valley of the Dead
- 1969: Hot over Africa's Earth (Battaglia del deserto) - Director: Mino Loy
- 1970: L'oro dei bravados
- 1970: Ehi amigo, be morto!
- 1971: Melody of Death (Giù la testa)
- 1972: Django's bloody trail (La lunga cavalcata della vendetta)
- 1972: Treasure Island (Treasure Iceland)
- 1972: Call of the Wild (The Call of the Wild)
- 1973: The Mysterious Island (La isla misteriosa) - Directed by Juan Antonio Bardem , Henri Colpi
- 1973: Jack London: Wolfsblut (Zanna Bianca)
- 1974: And then there were none - directed by Peter Collinson
- 1975: The Journey to Hell (Il lupo dei mari) - Director: Giuseppe Vari
- 1975: Nobody is the greatest (Un genio, due compari, un pollo)
- 1976: Nina - A Matter of Time
- 1977: The Iron Prefect (Il prefetto di ferro) - Director: Pasquale Squitieri
- 1977: Mannaja - The ax of death (Mannaja)
- 1977: The Nun and the Beast (Suor Emanuelle)
- 1977: Yellow Emanuelle (Il mondo dei sensi di Emy Wong)
- 1978: The great offensive (Il grande attacco) - Director: Umberto Lenzi
- 1979: The great battle of the syndicate (I contrabbandieri di Santa Lucia) - directed by Alfonso Brescia
- 1980: Zappatore - Director: Alfonsi Brescia
- 1982: The Bomber (Bomber)
- 1983: The Enchanted Screen (La vela incantata) - Director: Gianfranco Mingozzi
- 1985: The Denunciator (Il pentito) - Director: Pasquale Squitieri
- 1986: The smart asses (Asilo di polizia)
- 1988: Don Bosco - Director: Leandro Castellani
- 1989: Diva Futura (Diva Futura - L'avventura dell'amore) - Director: Ilona Staller
- 1991: Buck's greatest adventure (Buck ai confini del cielo)
- 2007: Winnetou Must Not Die (Documentary)
Web links
- Rik Battaglia in theInternet Movie Database(English)
- Filmography by Rik Battaglia in: The New York Times
- Obituary for Rik Battaglia in: t-online
Individual evidence
- ^ Enrico Lancia, Roberto Poppi: Dizionario del cinema italiano. Gli attori. A – L, Volume 3. Gremese 2003, p. 53
- ^ RIP Rik Battaglia. Obituary for Boot Hill, March 28, 2015 (accessed March 28, 2015).
personal data | |
---|---|
SURNAME | Battaglia, Rik |
ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Battaglia, Rick; Bertaglia, Caterino (real name) |
BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Italian actor |
DATE OF BIRTH | February 18, 1927 |
PLACE OF BIRTH | Corbola , Province of Rovigo |
DATE OF DEATH | March 27, 2015 |
Place of death | Corbola , Province of Rovigo |