Rik Battaglia

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Sophia Loren and 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)

Web links

Commons : Rik Battaglia  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Enrico Lancia, Roberto Poppi: Dizionario del cinema italiano. Gli attori. A – L, Volume 3. Gremese 2003, p. 53
  2. ^ 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