RIP Franco Giraldi

 

Director Franco Giraldi died, he worked with Sergio Leone and Giuliano Montaldo

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By Ilaria Costabile

December 2, 2020

Director Franco Giraldi passed away on the evening of Wednesday 2 December 2020 at the age of 89. For a few days he had been hospitalized in a health facility near Trieste, after discovering that he was positive for Covid-19. In his career he has worked with directors of the caliber of Sergio Leone and Giuliano Montaldo, collaborating in both film and television projects, for the small screen he made several screenplays in the 1970s.

A career in film as a director

Born in 1931 in Comeno, which is currently a small town within the territory of Slovenia, Franco Giraldi began to take his first steps in the world of cinema, approaching the trend of the Italian western and comedy of costume. Among his debut films we remember classics such as La bambolona (1968) and Cuori solitari (1970) and for a certain period of time he was assistant director to Sergio Leone , so much so that he supported him in the making of the film Per un fugno di dollars. Once Leone left the Jolly Film production company, it was he who settled behind the camera, making his successful debut in the Italian western with the film 7 guns for the McGregors.

The activity of film critic

After having fought as a partisan during the Second World War, he moved to Rome in the 1950s where he continued his career in the world of cinema, working alongside directors of the caliber of Gillo Pontecorvo, Carlo Lizzani and Giuliano Montaldo as an assistant. Cinema was always his home, as well as his greatest passion, so much so that his activity as a film critic was prolific, writing for the newspaper L'Unità and founded, with Tullio Kezich and Callisto Cosulich, the Circolo del Cinema di Trieste.

His works for television

Not only big screen for Franco Giraldi, but in the seventies he also approached television. In fact, he worked in television directing writing scripts such as The Red Rose (1972), The long journey (1975), based on Dostoevskij, Danubio (1991). In 2009, after being widowed by his wife, Palmira Petrongari, married four years earlier, returned to Friuli Venezia Giulia, first to Gradisca d'Isonzo, then to Trieste. For television, among other things, he made a series dedicated to Pepe Carvalho, the investigator of the novels of Manuel Vázquez Montalbán. But he devoted a certain amount of effort to the realization of the fiction L'avvocato Porta , with Gigi Proietti.

In his career he has been able to direct great names in Italian cinema such as Monica Vitti, Senta Berger, Luigi Proietti, Renzo Montagnani, Omero Antonutti, Laura Morante, Mariangela Melato, Raul Bova, Claudia Pandolfi, Ornella Muti, Maria Grazia Cucinotta, Gabriella Pession, Ottavia Small. Among his highly successful works there is undoubtedly The Green Jacket , taken from the homonymous story by Mario Soldati who, moreover, was a great friend of his.

 

GIRALDI, Franco 

Born: 7/11/1931, Comeno, Gorizia, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Italy

Died: 12/2/2020, Trieste, Friuli Venezia Giulia, Italy

Franco Giraldi's westerns - director, assistant director, writer.

A Fistful of Dollars – 1964 [assistant director]

Massacre at the Grande Canyon – 1964 [assistant director]

7 Guns for the Mac Gregors – 1965 [director]

Sugar Colt – 1966 [director, screenwriter]

Up the MacGregors! – 1966 [director, screenwriter]

A Minute to Pray, a Second to Die – 1967 [director]