Sergio Leone

format_quote (on Henry Fonda) I have never known an actor with such craft, with such professional seriousness; such a pleasant man, full of humor, so reserved and so keenly quick-witted.

stars  Sergio Leone died on 30 april 1989, just after seen a Robert Wise film : I want to live.

stars  Was very insecure about the films he made and every film he made was almost his last. Between Giù la testa (1971) and Once Upon a Time in America (1984) he produced several films and directed several commercials. He also did some uncredited directing work on some of the films he produced. Before his death he planned on making a film called The 900 Days about the siege on Leningrad. He was able to get $100 million in financing without even having written a script and he planned to cast Robert De Niro.

stars  Was sued by Japanese director Akira Kurosawa for remaking his Yojimbo (1961) as "A Fistful of Dollars" (Per un pugno di dollari (1964)) shot-for-shot without crediting him, and copyright infringement. The production of Per un pugno di dollari (1964) apologized, compensated Kurosawa with $100,000, and 15% of box office revenues.

stars  Started many feuds with his collaborators - Sergio Donati, for not being credited for co-writing Buono, il brutto, il cattivo, Il (1966); Luciano Vincenzoni; and Tonino Valerii, whom he usurped on the set of Mio nome è Nessuno, Il (1973) by directing many scenes of that film.

stars  His callous behavior towards his collaborators reached a high-water mark during the shooting of C'era una volta il West (1968) ("Once Upon a Time in the West"), when bit-part actor Al Mulock committed suicide on the set of the movie. Murlock, who also had appeared as the one-armed bounty hunter in Leone's Buono, il brutto, il cattivo, Il (1966), jumped from a hotel on location in Guadix, Spain. Production manager Claudio Mancini was sitting in a room in the hotel with Mickey Knox, an expatriate American who had been hired by Leone as a screenwriter; they both saw Mulock's body pass by their window. Knox recalled in an interview that while Mancini put Mulock in his car to drive him to the hospital, Leone said to Mancini, "Get the costume! We need the costume!" Mulock was wearing the costume he wore in the movie when he made his fatal leap.