«C‘It was always some critic cinematographic that underlined the physical prowess, as if it were a demerit. In the period when I was with Ursula, then, you can imagine: I had become “Fabio Andress”! But, I say, there are intelligent ugly and ugly stupid. There will also be some intelligent beautiful, right? ». The reasoning of Fabio Testi It does not make a grin.
«In fact I managed to go on … it was easy to be called for one-two films: I shot a hundred, in addition to the theater! I even brought on tour to Spain Zorba the Greeksinging and dancing the Sirtaki ».
A tour of poems
And now, at 83, he finds himself in competition to the most busy of the film festivals – that of Berlin – with SLR DANS A Diamant Mort by Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzaani. «Oh yes, I also act French. They play a retired secret agent who lives in a hotel in Nice. And there a series of very strange events, starting from the disappearance of his neighboring neighbor, pushes him to retrace (between various flashbacks) crucial moments of the past of 007 “.
Fabio Testi (Getty Images).
It was for a while since it was seen. He went to bed early in the evening to mention Once upon a time in America?
(smiles) No, I was not bored while living here in the countryside, on Lake Garda. I recently shot a TV series in costume, The Mysteries of Bargelloand above all I often carry on tour Love concert in versesa reading of poems accompanied by classical musicians. It gives me satisfaction and emotion.
How did the idea come to you?
Ten years ago they had called me for an evening in Segesta: it had to be one -off, and instead … we even been in the cathedral of Siena. The lineup includes Federico García Lorca, Pablo Neruda, Jacques Prévert.
“I feel responsible”
His favorite?
I love Neruda viscerally (“I would like to do with you that/ that spring does with cherries” he says in Kiss: magnificent!), And García Lorca. In this historical moment, where hatred runs out, we will only win if we completely give ourselves to love, if we think brothers. I have four grandchildren and I feel the responsibility strong: what world are we leaving? Poetry helps us to change the “spiritual register”.
“Dad’s warning”
Fabio Testi in the seventies (Getty Images).
An ancient passion?
Yes. I remember that at 10-11 I recorded my voice on a jealous (remember? The rain in the pine forest by D’Annunzio on the terrace with – in the background – the noise of the drops that bounced on a canopy …
He had already identified his way.
That not, it was a coincidence. I was born in Peschiera del Garda where, every summer, German troupes were shooting adventure films. As a boy I started, like so many peers, to make the appearance and, after a while, the stuntman. I think I have absorbed a certain taste for the risk from my father for adrenaline: he was an artificant. In autumn, however, again on the desks: I studied as a surveyor, with the idea of graduating in architecture.
And instead?
A director called me to Rome. Dad left me free, with a warning: “Here you will always find food and a roof, not the money for the gasoline of the car”. Translation: “Go, but know that you have to make you arrange”. I thank the education that mine gave me, who grew up between the two wars in the agricultural Veneto with the restrictions, the sufferings. It served me to pass “unharmed” in the jungle of the show.
So, once in the capital?
At night, to keep myself, I prepared the “lucid”, the technical drawings for a study. During the day I attended an acting course and I continued to do the stunt double: fallen from horse, accidents with motorcycles, with cars … in Barbarellashot in Cinecittà, I was the angel that flew on Jane Fonda, 30 meters high. I stayed two weeks hanging! (laughs)
The first interpreter film?
Foreigner … the sign of the cross of demophilo Fidani, in 1968. Two years later Vittorio De Sica wanted me in Il Giardino dei Finzi Continiwho won the Oscar: from there everything was easier. And I diversified: I did not intend to enter the western or detective vein.
Fabio Testi & Ursula Andress
The other turning out films?
Farewell cruel brother by Peppino Patroni Griffi, Camorra by Pasquale Squitieri, Scheduled zero group by Claude Chabrol in France, The legacy Ferramonti by Mauro Bolognini … I baptized at least 11 first works. The important thing is to love -What a success has had both as prizes and as a public (there was a tail in cinemas on the Champs-Élysées!)-he marked the debut of Andrzej żuławski. I was the protagonist with Romy Schneider.
How was the “Sissi” never forgotten?
Divine, wonderful and all too concentrated at work, probably for his devastated sentimental life.
No flirts between you?
No, absolutely not. At the time I was with Ursula: it was very jealous and was continuously on the set, in Paris. It would have been impossible. (laughs) I feared his furies: once I lost the plane for Ibiza (we lived in an incredible villa) two days in a row and, knowing it, I rented a 120 -seater plane just for me. (smiles)
Did you know you on the set?
Yes, in Canada: we shot llast chance With Eli Wallah.
How did you put this jealousy?
That after three years we broke up.
Charlotte Rampling had previously met on another set.
It was that of Farewell cruel brother: an uncomfortable film (the story of an incest in the Renaissance Mantua, editor’s note) and magnificent. The scenography were by Mario Ceroli, the music of Ennio Morricone, the photograph of Vittorio Storaro. He fascinated me for beauty, of course, but also for professionalism and talent.
Fabio Testi and Romy Schneider in “The important thing is to love” (Getty Images).
There is also Anita Ekberg
In the “catalog” there are Anita Ekberg …
We shot Death knocks twice in Tirrenia. The first day of processing included a naked scene. In the evening, having already passed the preambles, we went to the restaurant. (laughs)
… and Brooke Shields.
He came to Milan for advertising and we attended for a few months. Too bad that the mother was a “clips”, but a “break” …
Let’s not forget Edwige Fenech.
But let’s forget the epilogue. We had remained friends after the end of the relationship and, when he had a son, me they attributed paternity. Gossip accidents.
Do we conclude with Jean Seberg?
A beautiful story. I knew it casually in the restaurant in the period I was running Commissioner Le Guen and the Ramot case Together with Jean Gabin: when Pasquale Squitieri came to propose me CamorraI suggested that she too. Unfortunately he suffered from depression, he had ups and downs, truly unbridgeable voids. In 1979 he chose suicide.
About Jean Gabin … was he the one who advised her to buy his estate?
He led me to visit the farm that managed in Brittany and underlined the importance of having a plan B: “During the processing the producers love you, they grant you anything you ask. After the last clapperboard, if they could kill you for how much you broke the boxes “! (laughs) I followed the advice, becoming a pioneer of the cultivation of kiwi in our country. Dedicating myself to a vineyard, in Veneto, would have been trivial. Now I have converted 10 hectares to truffley.
Fabio Testi with Vanessa Redgrave in 2010 in “Letters to Juliet” (John P. Johnson/© Summit Entertainment/Courtesy Everett Collection).
“My partner-friend”
How did you choose the place?
As soon as I learned that my father was sick and had little time, I reassembled the land that had been of his family. He moved there and – incredible – he survived ten years with the tumor! Today I live with two of my children (the third is in London) and every now and then my ex -wife is visited (the Spanish stylist Lola Navarro, editor’s note).
The love chapter today?
Well, thank God! I have a forty-year-old partner-friend who is the propertyist and lives in Montecarlo. He doesn’t want to appear in the newspapers and I don’t want him to appear. We have many things in common, in particular the passion for poetry.
Other identikit come out from the internet search …
(laughs with taste) At my venerable age they still give me flirts. I am almost pleased! I am in the third, in the fourth or fifth age, I don’t know … anyway, the important thing is well.
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