RIP Claudio Mancini

 Claudio Mancini, the former boxer producer who worked with Sergio Leone and shot Mario Brega, has died

He was 96 years old and there are many anecdotes about him, perhaps true, perhaps not. An unrivalled craftsman of cinema, he worked with the greatest directors

 

la Republica

By Alberto Crespi

June 29, 2024

Table in a production office. On one side sits Claudio Mancini, producer. On the other, Mario Brega, actor. Both Romans. Both former boxers. Both extraordinary characters. Brega is negotiating for a role in Leone's next film, almost certainly Once Upon a Time in the West (he had just played a major part in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly). He demands higher pay. Maybe too high. At one point, from under the table, Mancini shoots him. A gunshot between the feet. Brega doesn't get upset. He looks at Mancini and says: "To Cla', what are you doing, are you shooting me?" And Mancini: "And I'll shoot you, yes, you've broken the f**** to ask all these deaf people".

Claudio Mancini died yesterday in Rome at the age of 96. He was born in Rome in 1928. When we interviewed him, years ago, he was living in Casal Palocco, in a beautiful villa. After the interview, he took us to visit the wine cellar. In the cellar others have a tavern, a bar, a fireplace, a table for dinners with friends. He had all the boxing equipment: boxing gloves, sack, punching ball. He was already eighty years old or so, and he kept fit like that. He was an extraordinary man, a craftsman of cinema without equal, a mine of anecdotes that maybe were true, maybe not.

This is a piece based on the oral history of Italian cinema, and that's why the quotation marks are in Romanesco, because Mancini only spoke in Romanesco. Many things may not be true. Also the shootout with Brega (which, for the record, in Once Upon a Time in the West, is not there, who knows why?...). But as John Ford says in The Man Who Killed Liberty Valance, when the legend becomes reality, print the legend.

Mancini lived in the historic center of Rome when there were still no pizzas by the slice or sushi-bar. He lived on the streets, like all the children of the 1930s and the immediate post-war period. "My favorite game was stone-throwing. I liked it so much, he threw the serci at the other regazzini. The other wonderful game was the cinema, where mom parked us for whole afternoons, it was our nursery. Cinema made me feel great. And then I saw the stones there too, how much I liked the boys of Paal Street." He started out in the cinema as an electrician's assistant, then did everything: extra, organizer, inspector and production secretary, sometimes director of photography, self-employed producer. He just missed being a director.

Sergio Leone was his friend, his point of reference, his god: "I had a love/hate relationship with him. How he pissed me off!' Ten, twenty, a hundred takes! But for the pursuit of perfection. Once Upon a Time in America was born from a sequence that he always recounted, and then he didn't shoot. Sergio didn't know how to write, but he told films like no one else. The scene looked like this: detail of a man's eyes, very close-up. The car pulls away, we see that this man is on the shoulders of two other men who are supporting him. The car gets out and we see that the man's feet are stuck in a block of concrete. Still without a break, we see that the two guys take the man near the bank of a river and throw him into the water. The car follows him, descends underwater and we see many other concrete blocks from which skeletons emerge. It was too difficult to make. Today, with digital, it would be a game."

Mancini worked with everyone. He did many productions by Ponti and De Laurentiis who stuck him to the ribs of the directors to help and control them. He went to Yugoslavia with David Lean for the inspections of Doctor Zhivago (later they did it in Spain). He went to America on many occasions. A story by Giuliano Montaldo: "Mancini and Leone were producing A Genius, Two Cronies, a Chicken, a comic western directed by Damiano Damiani. Filming took place in Arizona. Damiani ran out of time, the production was in danger of being cancelled and Mancini called Sergio: come, this has been wrapped, we need your help. Sergio took me with him to shoot second unit scenes, action, shootouts, horseback riding, while Damiani worked with the actors. We ended up in Monument Valley, with Sergio saying to me all excitedly: 'To Giulia', but 'o senti, 'o senti?'. And I: To You, but what must I hear? Him: 'John Ford, don't you feel the ghost of John Ford?' I just felt very hot. We shoot in the desert and Mancini has arranged a crazy catering, food and drink for the whole crew. While everyone is eating, a pick-up truck arrives, a Navajo gets out – we were on their reservation – and asks for water to drink. They kick him out in a bad way. The Navajo doesn't flinch: he walks over to the van, opens the door, picks up a Winchester from the windshield, walks back to the crew and fires at the caterer. Everyone under the table, everyone behind the rocks: except Mancini. Claudio goes to the Indian, snatches the Winchester from him and in pure Roman he tells him: 'But you're mad, you're going to kill me all for catering, but he's going to be killed'. The Indian, always imperturbable, goes away."

As a producer he made In the Year of the Lord by Gigi Magni: "Magni was almost a rookie, but he did very well. Initially, we only had to cast unknown actors. Then, for the role of Pasquino, Nino Manfredi enters the film. To which, Gigi and I if we look: ahò, since Nino is there, let's all like them! And so we take Sordi, Tognazzi, Hossein, the Cardinale. And Magni handled them like a tamer. The film was complicated, we had to shoot in the center of Rome covering the asphalt with dust, hiding the road signs. Great experience."

Mancini was the oral history of Italian cinema personified. You could spend hours listening to him. Also for the series "print the legend", he claimed to have invented the nickname "Monnezza" because when he went to visit Tomas Milian for the first time "he opened the door for me all filthy, covered with dirty laundry, like a fruit seller near my house that we called 'er monnezza'". I wonder if that's true. Look for his interviews on Youtube, there are several, a world will open up to you. Among his last engagements there had also been the work on Montalbano and the confirmation of his death came to us from Francesco Bruni and Carlo Degli Esposti. Condolences to the family, to the many children who all work in the cinema.

MANCINI, Claudio

Born: 3/24/1928, Rome, Lazio, Italy

Died: 6/29/2024, Rome, Lazio, Italy

Claudio Mancini westerns: - executive producer, assosciate producer, producer, general manager production supervisor, actor:

Once Upon a Time in the West – 1968 (Harmonica’s brother)

Duck You Sucker – 1971 (execution squad leader) [production supervisor, associate producer]

My Name is Nobody – 1973 [executive producer]

The Genius – 1975 [general manager, producer]

Buddy Goes West – 1981 [executive producer]

Sergio Leone: The Way I See Things – 2006 [himself]