Antonio Orlando, a Neapolitan actor – part I
– Dedicated to Charalampos Tzanakis
Antonio Orlando was a Neapolitan actor who died young and whose life is shrouded in mystery. The scant information available online about him is often contradictory and, in some cases, downright inaccurate. While Google and IMDb claim that Antonio was born in Naples on March 15, 1960 and that he died at the age of twenty-eight, on September 28, 1988, in the same city, most of these details are wrong. Orlando was not born in 1960 and neither did he die in 1988. But at least, they are correct about the actor’s place of birth and death: Naples.
Antonio Orlando was actually born on April 7, 1955. Werner Schroeter, a German film director who loved Naples and who was one of Orlando’s closest friends, provides an even more precise detail. Antonio was born at 5:30 in the morning, making him a Taurus with a Cancer ascendant.
And while his career was tragically cut short by a road accident at the age of 34, in 1989 – not 1988, as many sources mistakenly claim –, Orlando left an indelible mark on European «art» cinema. Once you’ve seend his long, languid, handsome face gazing directly at the camera, it’s very unlikely you’ll ever forget it.
(To write this kind-of-biography, I relied mainly in Werner Scrhoeter’s memoir and press articles – specially Turin’s La Stampa – from the 70s.)
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Blood Brothers
Nothing is known about Antonio Orlando’s life until the late spring of 1973, when the film crew of I guappi (Blood Brothers), led by director Pasquale Squitieri, arrived in Naples to shoot a tragedy set in the underworld of the 1890s Camorra. The stars of the film were Franco Nero, Claudia Cardinale and Fabio Testi – that means it was a big-budgeted project.
While we don’t know how the 18-year-old Antonio Orlando landed the role of Pasquale Scalzo in Blood Brothers, we may presume that Squitieri and his crew were casting local talent in Naples. Orlando, with his good looks and melancholic gaze, must have stood out among the other aspiring actors; he is perfect for his tragic role of Pasqualino, which, though secondary, is crucial for Blood Brothers’s plot with its tragic proportions.
I guappi, which was released in English-speaking countries under the title Blood Brothers, is Squitieri’s fourth feature film following several low-budget spaghetti westerns and his first commercial success, Camorra (1972). After Blood Brothers, Squitieri went on to direct warholite Joe Dallesandro in The Ambitious (1974).
Blood Brothers features a homosexual undercurrent, as the two main characters (played by Nero and Testi), though married to their respective wives, share a bond that transcends ordinary friendship. Their love is so powerful as to challenge the Camorra’s iron law. They can even give their own lives for each another. This theme of gay subtext appears to be a recurring element in Antonio’s career.
The production company had high hopes for the commercial success of Blood Brothers. As early as June 6, 1973, the Turin daily La Stampa said that Blood Brothers was «a very original theme with which Pasquale Squitieri, continuing to tell stories from certain Neapolitan circles, will try to repeat the “feat” of Camorra»1. The film was released in Italian cinemas on February 23, 1974. Watching Blood Brothers fifty years on, the word «classic» springs to mind.
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Silence the Witness
By the time Blood Brothers premiered, Orlando was deep into filming his second movie, also shot in his hometown of Naples. Il testimone deve tacere (Silence the Witness) is a dialogue-heavy thriller with giallo and poliziottesco touches, directed by Giuseppe Rosati and starring Bekim Fehmiu, Rosanna Schiaffino, Romolo Valli, Luigi Pistilli and Aldo Giuffrè.
According to IMDB, filming for Silence the Witness started shooting on January the 7th 1974 and, on 1 March, La Stampa was already talking about a «giallo per la Schiaffino»: «Rosanna Schiaffino is currently starring in a new police film: Il testimone deve tacere»2. The film was granted its censorship permit on April 30 and was released on May 16. Let’s just say that Il testimone deve tacere didn’t the course of the history of the Seventh Arts, so to speak…
Antonio appears in two scenes that bookend the film, like the front and back cover of a book. In the opening scene, Orlando is seen delivering groceries on his bicycle to Naples’ wealthy families, including that of the main character, Dr. Sironi (played by Bekim Fehmiu) and his wife (Rosanna Schiaffino). Orlando is humming a popular Neapolitan song while he rides his bike through Naples. He delivers bread and milk to Mrs. Sironi and then leaves. Everything is nice.
The last scene mirrors the first, with Orlando again riding his bike, singing the same Neapolitan song. However, there’s one stark difference: Mrs. Sironi has now placed a metallic fence in front of her window to keep her home safe from the dangers that may stalk her.
This fence symbolizes the events that unfold during the hour and a half between Orlando’s two visits to the Sironi’s household. Dr. Sironi, an average, law-abiding citizen who once believed that «we are all equal before the law», discovers that a powerful Neapolitan entrepreneur may be involved in some shady stuff. The way Dr. Sironi is treated by those supposed to enforce the law makes shatters his innocence and faith in respectable institutions like the police and courts of justice. He nearly loses his life in the process.
The film portrays the institutions in such a grim light that the producers had to include a disclaimer stating that the events depicted are purely fictional, that any resemblance to reality is merely coincidental and that Italy’s «powers that be» work hard every day to preserve our beloved democracy.
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Salo or The 120 Days of Sodom
A year passed before Antonio Orlando landed a supporting role in his first truly artistically relevant film, the work of an internationally renowned auteur. This was none other than Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Salò or The 120 Days of Sodom.
The genesis of Salò can be traced back to late 1974, when Sergio Citti, a frequent Pasolini collaborator, had designs on adapting the Marquis de Sade’s novel The 120 Days of Sodom for the silver screen.
Citti ultimately abandoned the project, and Pasolini ended up taking it on as his own, transposing the setting from 18th-century France to the Italy of the so-called «Republic of Salò» in the 1940s, just before the end of World War Two.
Nico Naldini, Pasolini’s cousin and biographer, notes that Pasolini cast well-known actors (Paolo Bonacelli, Elsa de Giorgi, Caterina Boratto… and French actresses Hélène Surgère and Sonia Saviange) alongside «unknown extras». The cast also includes a number of young men and women – nine, a «Sadian magic number», according to Naldini –, who fall prey to the depraved games of a group of fascist leaders confined to a mansion in Salò.
Pasolini’s motivation for making Salò was, in his own words, «to show how power acts by dissociating itself from humanity and transforming it into an object»3.
Filming of what would become Pasolini’s swansong began in mid-February (according to Nico Naldini) or early March (according to IMDb) near Mantua, with the sequence of «the searches for the young people»4. Pasolini would say in an interview that he selected the male victims from the ranks of amateur actors while the girls were photographic models, as they needed not only beautiful bodies but also enough confidence to show them nude before the camera.
IMDb reports that the presumably challenging shooting of Salò wrapped on 9th May. When Salò premiered at the Paris Film Festival in late November of the same year, Pasolini had already been murdered.
In the finished and edited copy of the film, Antonio Orlando is Tonino Orlando. He’s made captive at the beginning of the film, alongside the other eight male victims and nine female victims. He is one of the few ones who has some lines of dialogue.
«And that one, the one with the curly hair, is Tonino Orlando.»
The judge (Your Excellency) says: «You’re telling me his name? I’ve been after him for two years, two whole years!»
Tonino, with tears in his eyes, pleas for mercy: «Your Excellency, I beg you. Please help me, for mercy’s sake.»
[Ignoring him]: «His father was a Supreme Court judge, like me. A southerner, right?»
«Yes, sir» – obediently answers Tonino.
«Well, I’m not sure if I’ll be the one to deflower you. We’ll decide who gets that pleasurable task in due time.» [General laughter]
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The Sunday Woman / Soldier of Fortune
Shortly after the completion of Salò, in June 1975, production began on Luigi Comencini’s La donna della domenica (The Sunday Woman), in Turin, a city rarely shown in movies. This film is notable for being one of the first Italian productions to openly portray a homosexual couple. With an international cast headed by Marcello Mastroianni, Jacqueline Bisset, and Jean-Louis Trintignant, the production of The Sunday Woman was clearly a high-budget affair.
The Sunday Woman is a satire of Turin’s bourgeoisie, amusingly and cleverly disguised as a murder mystery. In this wickedly funny tale, the murder weapon is a massive stone phallus.
As late as June 6, La Stampa was still referring to The Sunday Woman as an upcoming project, stating: «Jacqueline Bisset will star in the film adaptation of Fruttero and Luccentini’s book, The Sunday Woman. The French actress [sic] will be joined by Mastroianni and Trintignant». Later, in a July 30 article, also in La Stampa, Elvio Ronza mentioned that Trintignant had «recently finished filming with Bisset and Mastroianni». These reports give us a rough timeline for the film’s production. The film made its debut in Turin on December 16.
Despite being credited in the film, Antonio Orlando is nowhere to be seen in The Sunday Woman. IMDb lists him as playing a barber in an early scene, but upon closer inspection, the actor in that role bears only a passing resemblance to Orlando. They’re probably around the same age and both have curly hair and somewhat similar features, but the nose is the giveaway: the barber has an aquiline nose, while Orlando’s was straight.
This discrepancy likely stems from a common practice in the Italian film industry during the 1960s and 1970s. Supporting actors were often credited even if their scenes ended up on the cutting room floor during the final edit. It seems Orlando’s role may have fallen victim to this practice, resulting in his name appearing in the credits despite his absence from the finished film.
Antonio Orlando seamlessly transitioned from the film set of The Sunday Woman to his next project, The Soldier of Fortune, starring Bud Spencer in the role of Ettore Fieramosca.
In an amusing anecdote reported by Adele Gallotti in La Stampa, she noted that some people still mistook Spencer for a genuine American actor. These fans would approach him requesting autographs in English, addressing him as «Mr. Spencer» and so on, unaware that he was actually Italian.
Soldier of Fortune was the first time Antonio Orlando worked for director Pasquale Festa Campanile – there would be a second one in the early Eighties. In Soldier of Fortune, Orlando plays Carelario di Molfetta, an Italian fourteen-year-old rascal, who is sent to serve in the Spanish Army but wants to join the small regiment of mercenaries led by Bud Spencer to gain «fame and fortune».
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1977-1978
A year and a half after his previous film, Antonio Orlando made his return to cinema in early 1977. He reunited with director Pasquale Squitieri, who had given Orlando his debut film role in Blood Brothers three years earlier.
Their new collaboration, Il prefetto di ferro (The Iron Prefect), was a thriller based on Arrigo Petacco’s novel of the same name, set in the mid-1920s. The Iron Prefect was primarily shot in Rome, with additional scenes filmed in Artena, Tolfa, and Colli a Volturno. While Orlando’s name appears in the credits, the specifics of his role remain unclear. This period piece marked Orlando’s return to the big screen, continuing his working relationship with Squitieri.
Shortly before Christmastime, 1977, a film crew arrived on the shores of Naples. This group, much more humble than the one from Blood Brothers, was led by Werner Schroeter, one of the most important, if lesser-known, directors of the German New Wave. Schroeder had come to revisit the city he had fallen in love with as a teenager, aiming to assemble the cast for his upcoming feature film, The Kingdom of Naples.
Schroeter and his team settled into the city just before Christmas. Despite his efforts, Werner struggled to find a local actor suitable for the role of Massimo Pagano. We will again quote Werner Schroeter’s memoirs:
«Then, one day, along came Antonio Orlando. I noticed at once that he had better than basic acting ability, along with intelligence and serenity. He played the scene— to Gerardo’s horror I had summoned him to stand in for the tart again— the same dialog came up, and I told Mauch, “Get closer! Più vicino, più vicino!” When Antonio had left, I told Gerardo, “That’s him—è lui.” At which Gerardo flung open the door of the room in our wonderful hotel right by the Santa Lucia yacht harbor and ran along the corridors and down the stairs shouting, “Heurika, heurika, l’abiamo trovato! Il cazzo del maestro ha parlato finalmente!” [Eureka, we’ve found the boy for the part! The master’s prick has finally spoken!]»5.
Schroeter writes that he fell in love with Antonio and his «irresistible charm», which led to «erotic contact a good year later».
The Kingdom of Naples was awarded the major prize of the best film at the Taormina Film Festival in July.
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Notes
1C. M.: «La quantità non tradisce mai la qualità.» La Stampa, Turin, June 6, 1973, p. 7.
2«Giallo per la Schiaffino». La Stampa, Turin, March 1, 1974, p. 7.
3Nico Naldini: Pier Paolo Pasolini, Circe, Barcelona, 1991, p. 355.
4Nico Naldini: ibídem, p. 357.
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