RIP Antonio Marsina

 

Cinema, actor Tony Marsina has died: his "villain" roles from Dino Risi to Ursula Andress

Cinema, actor Tony Marsina has died: his "villain" roles from Dino Risi to Ursula Andress

He died at the age of eighty in his Nardò, as a boy he moved to Rome where he caused a sensation first with photonovels and then with genre films

la Repubblica

by Biagio Valerio

March 6, 2026

 

He had a face and a look that Luchino Visconti would have liked. Antonio Marsina, known by his many friends as Tony, died today at the age of eighty. Blond, light eyes, tall, handsome and with a stately and even aristocratic bearing. Uncommon physical characteristics in those years and in the deep Salento that led him to move to Rome and become the protagonist of photo-novels that, at the time, were all the rage.

But it is as a film actor who also achieves great success in the roles of the "villain", as could happen especially in the very well-characterized films of the Sixties and Seventies. The trend of the so-called "genre films" welcomes him and makes him debut everywhere: the so-called "detectives", comedies, espionage and even westerns. Italian-style, of course, as per the great tradition of those years.

Some films see him as the protagonist and present on posters and flans. Small cult films are remembered among fans of "cinema bis" such as Keoma, with Franco Nero, or The Mountain of the Cannibal God, with a splendid Ursula Andress.

And then The Boy Who Knew How to Love, The Great Racket, Rolf, Unscrupulous, A Woman to Discover, Great Boiled Meat, Dagobert. Appreciated by directors who form the backbone of Italian genre cinema, think of Enzo G. Castellari and Antonio Margheriti, he has also worked with masters such as Mauro Bolognini, Pasquale Festa Campanile, Dino Risi

In more recent years, TV has rediscovered him by calling him into successful series but it is with thirty episodes of Vento di Ponente, from 2002 to 2004, that he has experienced a second artistic youth thanks to the role of Sebastiano Ghiglione, alongside Serena Autieri and Anna Kanakis.

Memorable, in the seventies, were the invitations to the Modern Cinema to the elderly mother who was reserved a place of honor in the gallery. And often the woman ended the vision in tears precisely because the role of the son foresaw a bloody end. But the historic manager of the theater, Luciano Leonardo, did not fail to celebrate the release of the new film with a specially printed poster: "with the participation of our fellow citizen Antonio Marsina".

In recent years, the actor had decided to return to his land to live in his most beautiful places, first the historic center of Nardò and then the Ionian coast, inseparable from his wife Lucia Bruni, who passed away only three months ago. Tomorrow morning at 10.30 am, in the city's cemetery, the blessing of the body and burial.

MARSINA, Antonio

Born: 1/12/1946, Nardò, Puglia, Italy

Died: 3/6/2026, Gallipoli, Puglia, Italy

 

Antonio Marsina’s westerns – actor:

My Name is Pecos - 1966

A Stranger in Town – 1966 (Aguila henchman)

Keoma – 1975 (Lenny Shannon)