Tomás Milián

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Tomás Quintín Rodríguez Milián (born March 3, 1933 in Havana , † March 22, 2017 in Miami , Florida ) was a Cuban- Italian-American actor .

life and work

Tomás Milián was the son of Dolores "Lola" Milián and the military officer Tomás Quintín "Tomín" Rodríguez y Estrada, who served under the dictator Gerardo Machado . When he was overthrown on August 11, 1933, his father was first imprisoned in a fortress and then in the psychiatric department of a private clinic for several years, where his son first consciously met him when he was four. On New Year's Eve 1945, the father committed suicide in front of his son. After seeing James Dean in Beyond Eden at a cinema in Havana in 1954 , Milián decided to become an actor. He first went to Miami in 1956, where he took art painting and English lessons and gained his first acting experience. He earned US citizenship after serving temporarily in the Navy .

In 1957, Milián was admitted to the Actors Studio in New York City after passing the entrance exam with 3,000 competitors for acting training. After small engagements on television and in the theater, he was discovered in 1958 by Jean Cocteau , who invited him to participate in the European-American Festival dei Due Mondi in Spoleto , Italy, together with Gian Carlo Menotti . After his successful theater engagement under director Franco Zeffirelli , Milián stayed in Italy, where he made his feature film debut in Mauro Bolognini's Wir von der Straße (La notte brava) in 1959 . This was followed by roles in films by Luchino Visconti and Valerio Zurlini, among others . From 1966 he was among the most prominent leading actors of the spaghetti western genre, which was successful in Europe for around ten years. He was especially known for his leading roles in the westerns of Sergio Sollima ( The Haunted of the Sierra Madre , Face to Face ) . He later appeared in other genre productions, including films by Giulio Petroni and Sergio Corbucci .

After the end of spaghetti western fashion, he was offered a supporting role as a thief in a police film in the mid-1970s , as the producers wanted to benefit from the popularity of his name. He agreed on the condition that he could develop the role further. The typical Roman petty criminal, which he finally played in Umberto Lenzi's Das Schlitzohr und der Bull , whom he nicknamed "Monnezza" (Italian slang for "garbage") and a vulgar expression, was a hit with the public. Four films followed in the same role, before Milián played the police commissioner Nico Geraldi in sixteen other films, to whom the nickname was transferred. Monnezza became a cult figure of his career and made Milián one of the most popular actors in Italy. Monnezza's voice with its typically Roman touch was contributed by the actor and voice actor Ferruccio Amendola in the post-production , even if Milián himself often added expressions of the Roman colloquial language to the script text.

In addition to his commercially extremely successful work in the series-produced western and action films, Milián has always been seen in artistically demanding films, for example by Lina Wertmüller or Michelangelo Antonioni . For his leading role in Bernardo Bertolucci's La Luna (1979) he was awarded the Italian Film Critics' Prize. At the end of the 1970s, he was given Italian citizenship in addition to US (and dormant Cuban) citizenship.

In the mid-1980s, Milián suffered a life crisis that made him go on a pilgrimage to a guru in India. He then published an illustrated book with artistic photographs. He decided to try a complete new beginning of his career and moved his main work to the United States, where he appeared in small theater productions for the first few years. For financial reasons he returned to Italy once a year for cinema films. After his first roles in the television series Miami Vice and The Equalizer , the positive response to his performance in Sydney Pollack's Havana (1990) meant that he was able to establish himself as a supporting actor in other Hollywood productions in the following years , including in films by Oliver Stone , Steven Spielberg and Steven Soderbergh played.

Tomás Milián was married to the Italian Margherita "Rita" Valetti from 1964 until her death in 2012. Their son Tommaso Milian lives as an actor in New York.

In 2014 Milián visited his hometown Havana for the first time in almost 59 years, where he gave a lecture and was honored with a retrospective at the Cinemateca Nacional de Cuba . On March 22, 2017, Tomás Milián died of a stroke in Miami at the age of 84

Awards

Festival Internacional de Cine de Mar del Plata

Nastro d'Argento

Screen Actors Guild Awards

International Film Festival Rome

  • 2014: Marc'Aurelio d'oro for his life's work as an actor

Filmography (selection)

cinemamovies

Television productions

  • 1958: Decoy (season 1 episode 32)
  • 1959: The Millionaire (season 5 episode 35)
  • 1985: Miami Vice (episode Bought and Paid For )
  • 1985: The Equalizer (Season 1, Episode 12)
  • 1987: The Equalizer (Season 3 Episode 8)
  • 1990: The Camarena Plot (three-part miniseries)
  • 1991: LA Law (season 5 episode 14)
  • 1992: Frannie's Turn (6 episodes)
  • 1992: Murder Is Her Hobby (Season 8, Episode 19)
  • 1997: Oz: Hell Behind Bars (Season 1 Episode 2 & 6)
  • 2000: Law & Order (season 10, episode 24)
  • 2001: UC: Undercover (Season 1 Episode 3)

Discography

  • 1967: La piazza / Il Cavallo Bianco
  • 1968: Espanto en el corazon / Americana (with the Orchestra Nicolai)
  • 1970: Presto presto scusa scusa / Un libro una storia

Book publications

literature

  • Giorgio Navarro, Fabio Zanello: Tomas Milian. He cubbano de Roma . Molino, 1999, ISBN 88-900359-3-5 .
  • Max Serio: Tomas Milian: The Tough Bandit, the Rough Cop and the Filthy Rat in Italian Cinema . Medians, 2009, ISBN 88-96042-12-7 .
  • Gordiano Lupi: Tomas Milian, il trucido e lo sbirro . Profondo Rosso Editore, 2011, ISBN 88-89084-50-2 .
  • Michael Striss: Grace speaks God - Amen my Colt. Motifs, symbolism and religious references in the Spaghetti Western , Büchner-Verlag, Marburg 2018, 670 pages, ISBN 978-3-96317-123-9 .

documentary

  • Giuseppe Sansonna: The Cuban Hamlet - Storia di Tomas Milian. Italy 2014

Web links

Commons : Tomás Milián  - Collection of Images

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Gregorio Borgia: Tomas Milian Obit. In: NewsOK.com . OPUBCO Communications Group, March 23, 2017, accessed March 23, 2017 .
  2. ↑ a b Jenny Jecke: Tomas Milian, star from spaghetti westerns and police films, died at the age of 84. In: Moviepilot . March 23, 2017. Retrieved March 23, 2017 .
  3. ↑ a b c d Susana Méndez Muñoz: Tomás Milián en Cuba, cerrando círculos, in: Progreso Semanal of November 30, 2014, accessed on March 25, 2017 (Spanish)
  4. ↑ a b Chiara Ugolini: È morto Tomas Milian, il "cubano romano", in: La Repubblica from March 23, 2017, accessed on March 25, 2017 (Italian)
  5. ↑ a b c d Vernon Scott: Italian citizen Tomas Milian is a Cuban native with… in: UPI of September 11, 1992, accessed on March 25, 2017 (English)
  6. ↑ Nick Vivarelli: Cuban-American Actor Tomas Milian, Italian Genre Movies Star, Dies at 84 in: Variety from March 23, 2017 (English)
  7. ↑ Marc'Aurelio Acting Award to Tomas Milian, on the website of the Rome International Film Festival on September 29, 2014, accessed on March 25, 2017 (English)
  8. ↑ El actor Tomás Milián visita Cuba tras 60 años ausente, in: Diario de Cuba of November 26, 2014, accessed on March 25, 2017 (Spanish)
personal data
SURNAME Milián, Tomás
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Rodríguez Milián, Tomás Quintín (full name); Milian, Tomas
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Cuban-Italian-American actor
DATE OF BIRTH March 3, 1933
PLACE OF BIRTH Havana , Cuba
DATE OF DEATH 22nd March 2017
Place of death Miami , Florida , United States