When first-time documentary director Leonard Manzella premieres his award-winning “Shoe Shine Caddie” at the Portobello Film Festival in London on September 16, it will represent a kind of return to the former actor’s roots in the international film scene.
A professional family therapist for the past 30 years in California, Manzella’s earlier career began when the native Angeleno left Los Angeles for Rome in 1968 “when everything was burning.” In his early 20s and armed with “no contacts and about $50 bucks in my pocket,” a fortuitous introduction to American actor Brett Halsey got Manzella into movies, first as an extra and eventually as a leading man.
Halsey, who landed in Rome in the ‘60s and worked steadily in Euro crime thrillers and in the burgeoning spaghetti western scene, often toiled under the moniker Montgomery Ford and Leonard Manzella became famous as Leonard Mann.
“I went to Rome to study political science,...
A professional family therapist for the past 30 years in California, Manzella’s earlier career began when the native Angeleno left Los Angeles for Rome in 1968 “when everything was burning.” In his early 20s and armed with “no contacts and about $50 bucks in my pocket,” a fortuitous introduction to American actor Brett Halsey got Manzella into movies, first as an extra and eventually as a leading man.
Halsey, who landed in Rome in the ‘60s and worked steadily in Euro crime thrillers and in the burgeoning spaghetti western scene, often toiled under the moniker Montgomery Ford and Leonard Manzella became famous as Leonard Mann.
“I went to Rome to study political science,...
- 9/15/2023
- by Steven Gaydos
- Variety Film + TV
Rossana Podestà dead at 79: ‘Helen of Troy’ actress later featured in sword-and-sandal spectacles, risqué sex comedies (photo: Jacques Sernas and Rossana Podestà in ‘Helen of Troy’) Rossana Podestà, the sensual star of the 1955 epic Helen of Troy and other sword-and-sandal European productions of the ’50s and ’60s — in addition to a handful of risqué sex comedies of the ’70s — died earlier today, December 10, 2013, in Rome according to several Italian news outlets. Podestà was 79. She was born Carla Dora Podestà on August 20, 1934, in, depending on the source, either Zlitan or Tripoli, in Libya, at the time an Italian colony. According to the IMDb, the renamed Rossana Podestà began her film career in 1950, when she was featured in a small role in Dezsö Ákos Hamza’s Strano appuntamento ("Strange Appointment"). However, according to online reports, she was actually discovered by director Léonide Moguy, who cast her in a small role in...
- 12/10/2013
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
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