Bud Spencer (1929-2016)

Carlo Pedersoli was an Olympic swimmer as a young man. With that background he could have been a Tarzan of the movies. Instead, as he grew huskier and shaggier, he became a fixture in spaghetti westerns under his stage name, an homage to Spencer Tracy. Despite his imposing size and potentially forbidding appearance, he usually played more likable than menacing characters. He achieved stardom during the decadent phase of the spaghetti genre as the sidekick to Terrence Hill in the Trinity movies and a variety of films beyond the genre. In the 1970s Spencer became a solo star, headlining the semi-comic Flatfoot (Piedone or, more literally, "Bigfoot") series about a cop who preferred to use fists rather than guns. He received a lifetime achievement award from the Italian film industry in 2010. A prominent figure in the wild world of cinema in the last years of global grindhouse distribution, Spencer died on June 27. Follow this link for a closer look at some of Spencer's films.