PeplumParadise wrote: ↑10/01/2021, 12:31
Carlos, do you recognise either of the Bonadonna brothers from westerns at all? It seems a bit odd for 2 Italian stuntmen that, apart from one credited role for Giovanni in
Black Jack and both appearing in
Noi non siamo angeli, neither of them have any other known roles in westerns, and neither of them currently have many credits from the late 60's and early 70's when westerns were at their peak
Elio
viewtopic.php?f=40&t=790
Giovanni
viewtopic.php?f=40&t=791
I don't have anything to add as far as the westerns are concerned, but what I do know is that Giovanni at least got a lot of steady work from appearing in fotoromanzi. From around 1966 to 1971 and again during 1974-75, he appeared in a significant amount of fotoromanzi for the well-known publisher Lancio - always credited as Gianni Bonadonna or uncredited. He obviously never played any leading roles, but instead specialized in playing henchmen, thugs, cops or other parts that required some physicality. Having left Lancio, he began to do fotoromanzi for rival publisher Condor in 1976 and continued to appear in these until Condor ceased production in 1981. He played the same kind of roles here, but was also awarded larger, more comedic character parts here. His brother Elio also popped up in both the Lancio and Condor fotoromanzi, but only very sporadically and usually uncredited. Aside from Giovanni, the only stuntman I'm aware of that worked regularly in fotoromanzi is Claudio Ruffini.
Anyway, I've very familiar with Gi(ov)anni, and I can say for sure that it's him in the pics from
Zorro posted in his topic.
Regarding Elio, from a bit of googling, it seems he was a wrestler, competing for the Associazione Sportiva Borgo-Prati and becoming a champion in the late 50s and early 60s.
Another interesting thing I've found is an Italian guy named Luca Zanna, who apparently runs a gladiator school in the US. In various articles and interviews with him, he explains that his interest began when he was hanging out in a gym that was owned by Elio Bonadonna and that he was trained by him.
This appears to be Zanna's website and on this page he talks a little bit about Elio (including that he appeared in
Barabbas) and has a picture of him together with Ernest Borgnine and Nello Pazzafini:
http://www.romegiftshop.com/spargladsch ... fullsite=1 That picture is clearly not from
Barabbas, though. Looks like it's from many years later. Looking at Borgnine's filmography, my best bet is the TV mini series
The Last Days of Pompeii (1984) so that one should be checked for both Elio and Nello.