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- Dark, rugged and exceedingly good-looking, Italian actor Ettore Manni was a familiar presence in Neopolitan romancers and costumers. He also gave added stature to a number of peplum films and spaghetti westerns of the 1960s. On screen from 1952, he appeared in over 100 films in his close to three-decade career. Popular in his native country, he played opposite Italy's most scintillating leading ladies in his early movies -- Sophia Loren, Eleonora Rossi Drago and Gianna Maria Canale, to name a few, often playing the continental lover.
Manni was born on May 6, 1927, in Rome, Italy, and came to films in 1952 with La tratta delle bianche (1952) [Frustrations] starring Rossi-Drago in which he was third billed. In 1952 and 1953 he was handed prime leads and supports in the Carlo Ponti/Dino De Laurentiis productions of I tre corsari (1952) [The Three Pirates], Fratelli d'Italia (1952), The Devil Is a Woman (1953) and The Ship of Damned Women (1953) the last two co-starring Kerima and May Britt. Ponti also paired Manni opposite his sultry-eyed wife Sophia Loren in Two Nights with Cleopatra (1954) playing Marc Antony to Loren's Cleopatra.
Other strong roles followed for Manni. He played the brother of Anthony Quinn's Attila (1954), and was reunited with Rossi-Drago in both Donne sole (1956) and The Girlfriends (1955), as well as with both Kerima and May Britt in Fatal Desire (1953). The quality of Manni's films declined into the late 50s and 60s but he found himself quite busy in such lowbudget fare as The Warrior and the Slave Girl (1958), The Pirate of the Black Hawk (1958) and Diez fusiles esperan (1959). He also appeared opposite lovely Linda Cristal's Cleopatra in Legions of the Nile (1959) and the equally fetching Debra Paget as Daughter of Cleopatra (1960).
Sword-and-sandal spectacles became the rage during this time and Manni took full advantage with supporting roles in Hercules and the Captive Women (1961) starring Reg Park as the muscular titan, Hercules and the Masked Rider (1963), Hercules, Prisoner of Evil (1964) and Giants of Rome (1964) with Richard Harrison as the muscled hero. Manni also jumped on the "spaghetti western" bandwagon years later with appearances in the films Ringo and His Golden Pistol (1966), Fort Yuma Gold (1966), The Stranger Returns (1967), Johnny Colt (1966), Ed ora... raccomanda l'anima a Dio! (1968), I Am Sartana, Your Angel of Death (1969) and Inginocchiati straniero... I cadaveri non fanno ombra! (1970).
Outside of Italy, Manni, who grew stockier in later years, could be found playing priests and officer parts. He appeared as Jason in a couple of the popular French "Angelique" series with Untamable Angelique (1967) and Angelique and the Sultan (1968). Manni also lent support to a number of imported American/British male leads past their prime who found headlining work in Italy. These included The Valiant (1962) starring John Mills, Attack of the Normans (1962) starring Cameron Mitchell, Gold for the Caesars (1963) starring Jeffrey Hunter; War of the Zombies (1964) starring John Drew Barrymore, The Battle of El Alamein (1969) with Frederick Stafford, and in Incontro d'amore (1970) with John Steiner. A supreme showcase role came his way during this period when he appeared opposite Jeanne Moreau in Mademoiselle (1966).
In the early 1970s, Manni met gorgeous Austrian-born actress Krista Nell, who had leads and second leads in French and Italian films. Although they did not marry, they became longtime companions. They showed up together in the films Django and Sartana Are Coming... It's the End (1970) Les libertines (1970) and Karzan, il favoloso uomo della jungla (1972). Sadly, Nell was diagnosed with leukemia and lost her battle against the disease in Rome in 1975. She was only 28.
The grief-stricken Manni suffered from chronic depression following her death but continued to work in Italy, appearing in Risking (1976), Oh, Serafina! (1976), The Rip-Off (1977), Silver Saddle (1978), Il malato immaginario (1979), La verdad sobre el caso Savolta (1980), along with many TV projects.
Much now has been said over the controversy of the actor's untimely death on July 27, 1979 in Rome. It was originally believed that the 52-year-old Manni, an avid gun collector, accidentally shot himself in the groin while cleaning or handling a gun. It is now believed he committed suicide. His final film, Federico Fellini's City of Women (1980) in which he supported Marcello Mastroianni, was released posthumously. - Actress
- Soundtrack
Shirley Mason was born Leonie Flugrath on June 6, 1900, in Brooklyn, NY. The youngest of three acting sisters (the others were Edna Flugrath and Viola Dana), Shirley made her debut in At the Threshold of Life (1911) at age 11. As a child actress she wasn't in much demand until she grew older, then she began to take on more roles. Her second film was Vanity Fair (1915). It wasn't until 1917 that film executives began to take the young actress more seriously, as they cast her in 13 films that year alone, which also saw her gain the title role in The Awakening of Ruth (1917). By the time the 1920s rolled around she was making fewer films, but taking on more substantial parts in films such as Love's Harvest (1920), The Lamplighter (1921) and Very Truly Yours (1922). Her final film was The Flying Marine (1929), after which she retired.
She died on July 27, 1979.- Karen Ciral was born in Riverside, California, and moved to Hollywood as a young teenager. She married and had two children. She divorced in in 1965, and pursued her Hollywood dream, acting in several lesser know films movies. A casting director for The Johnny Carson show saw her in a film, and she was hired as a member of the Might Carson Art Players. She appeared on Police Story, Baretta, and the film FM, the precursor to the hit television series, WKRP In Cincinatti. In June of 1979, as she was driving to an audition, a drunk driver hit her car head on. She died a month later from an accidental overdose of phenobarbital, which she was prescribed for seizures after the accident.
- Endre Várhelyi was born on 25 June 1924 in Hódmezõvásárhely, Hungary. He was an actor, known for Nem várok holnapig... (1967), A csengö (1966) and Musical TV Theater (1970). He died on 27 July 1979 in Budapest, Hungary.
- Joseph Del Nostro Jr. was born on 24 March 1940 in Cleveland, Ohio, USA. He was an actor, known for Diary of a Madman (1963). He died on 27 July 1979 in Los Angeles, California, USA.