Tonino Valerii

Trained at Centro Sperimentale, Tonino Valerii entered films as Raffaello Matarazzo's assistant on "I Terribili sette." He adopted the pseudonym Robert Bohr for his script contributions to the Christopher Lee and Barbara Steele horrors "Crypt of the Vampire" and "Long Hair of Death" before becoming Sergio Leone's assistant on the Clint Eastwood classics "A Fistful of Dollars" and "For a Few Dollars More." Now firmly identified with the Spaghetti Western, Valerii made his directorial debut in 1966 with the bounty hunting tale "A Taste for Killing." However, having directed Lee Van Cleef as an aging gunfighter in "Gunlaw" and chronicled an assassination attempt on President Garfield in "Texas," Valerii focused on sexual identity in the psychological drama "A Girl Named Jules," in which he also acted. Changing tack again, he tried his hand at giallo with "My Dear Killer." But he returned to the Western by teaming with James Coburn in "A Reason to Live, a Reason to Die" and Henry Fonda in "My Name Is Nobody," which was based on an idea by Sergio Leone, who directed the odd scene and also executive produced. Always more of an imitator than an innovator, Valerii ventured into the crime genre with "Go Gorilla Go," the actioner with "Sahara Cross" and the erotic drama with "Unscrupulous." But, besides the Mafia sagas "Sicilian Connection" and "Brothers in Blood," he mostly worked in television before returning to features in 1997 with "Un Bel di' vedremo" and "Vacation in Hell."