Aldo Sanbrell photographed in 2007 by John Exshaw. (Photo copyright John Exshaw. All rights reserved.)
BY JOHN EXSHAW
With the death of Aldo Sanbrell, who passed
away in Alicante last Saturday (10 July), aged 79, another link to the great
days of Italian film-making – and the Italian Western, in particular – has been
lost. The only actor to appear in all of Sergio Leone’s Westerns, Aldo was the
most prominent and recognisable of all those mean-looking hombres who rode the badlands and bit the dust of AlmerÃa in those
far-off days when southern Spain was the Wild West – Italian style. Asked once
by a British director if he “knew how to die,†Aldo replied, “Oh yes, señor, I
have been killed in many film fights here in AlmerÃa. I have died for Clint
Eastwood, Burt Reynolds, Charles Bronson, George Scott . . . I have made 185
films and I have been killed in all of them. Yes, I know how to die.â€
Aldo, photographed at home in Alicante, 2008 - and always ready for action. (Photo copyright John Exshaw. All rights reserved.)
Aldo in the 1960s Western Navajo Joe, in which he co-starred with up-and-coming Burt Reynolds.
Given those performances, it is a matter of
some regret that Leone was either unable or unwilling to create more
substantial parts for Aldo (who, with unerring consistency, was cast a member
of the Rojos’ gang in Fistful of Dollars,
a member of Angel Eyes’ gang in The Good,
the Bad and the Ugly, and a member of Cheyenne’s gang in Once Upon a Time in the West, before
making a blink-and-you’ll-miss-him appearance as a firing squad officer in A Fistful of Dynamite). According to
Aldo, he once complained bitterly to Leone at being cast yet again as
“gunfighter number 506†and was apparently told that, if Eli Wallach was unable
to accept the role, Aldo would be cast as Tuco in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. While there is no reason to
disbelieve this story, it is impossible to accept that Leone was being anything
other than disingenuous (to put it mildly), knowing, as he must have done, that
United Artists would never accept anyone other than a Hollywood “name†in the
part.
I first met Aldo in July 2006, after writing
to him in Madrid to enquire about an interview. In a subsequent ʼphone call, he told me
about the forthcoming 40th. Anniversary
of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly event in Salas de los Infantes, near
Burgos, and suggested I try to get to it.Cut to the opening event and the inevitable speechifying, and there was
Aldo in the front row, cooling himself with a fan he’d swiped from his wife,
Cándida (entirely typical behaviour, I might add, tolerated with long-suffering
good humour by the lady herself). Later on, I made myself known by quoting
Aldo’s line from Once Upon a Time in the
West – “Two tickets, amigo, to the next station. One-way only.†Rather
embarrassingly, Aldo had no idea what I was on about, but we soon got past this
and everything thereafter went swimmingly. The highpoint of the event, as far I
was concerned, was sitting beside Aldo in Sad Hill cemetery, watching The Good, the Bad and the Ugly on a
mobile screen as darkness closed in and the hills were alive with the sound of
music – Morricone style. Afterwards, I turned to Aldo and said something along
the lines of, “Well, hot damn, how about that, eh?†To which Aldo replied, with
a shake of the head, “This movie, it’s just too fuckin’ long.†Oh, well . . .
Aldo and his beloved wife Candida (Photo copyright John Exshaw. All rights reserved.)
A few days later, back in Madrid, I reined
in at Aldo’s office on the Gran VÃa for our interview, which ended up
stretching over four days, interspersed with long lunch breaks in a nearby
Western-style rib joint. This was where Aldo seemed most relaxed, sitting at a
huge barrel which acted as a table, shovelling handfuls of nuts into his mouth
and generally acting the goat, leading Señora Cándida to throw her eyes up to
heaven and mutter, “Como un niño indisciplinado . . .†Their affection for each
other was obvious and genuine.
In 2007, Aldo invited me to visit his new
apartment in Alicante. Each morning, after a pyjama-clad Aldo had completed his
exercise routine up and down the hall and then chosen his outfit for the day
(he was always immaculately and stylishly clad), we headed across the street
for coffee and chocolate con churros.
Aldo would joke and flirt with the waitresses, often disconcerting them by
switching on his mean hombre act
(“Eh, what is this thing you bring me?â€), before grinning broadly to show he
wasn’t being serious. Later on, when we were joined by Señora Cándida, Aldo
would vigorously deny having eaten any of the churros (he was on heart medication, and fried dough sticks with
glutinous hot chocolate were only permitted at the weekend). Needless to say,
she didn’t believe a word of it. And so it went: lunch back at the apartment,
followed by siesta, and then maybe a
trip into the town centre and a walk along the seafront. After dinner, “el gran
jefe†(a nickname employed by Señora Cándida and I, in reference to his role in
Navajo Joe) would settle in a rocking
chair to watch another interminable soccer match, most of which seemed to end
in an exciting 0-0 draw. My efforts to interest him in the more manly pursuit
of rugby union fell on deaf ears.
As indicated by the premise of RÃo seco, Aldo did feel that his work
was overlooked in his home country and it certainly bothered him, perhaps more
than it should have. His grousing was not always light-hearted. I tried to
convince him that, whatever the situation in Spain, he was known and respected
by aficionados of Westerns all’italiana
the world over. On a certain level, he was aware of this: he would recall with
delight being recognised as Duncan on the streets of London, and took great
pleasure in the annual pilgrimage of a group of American Leone devotees who
made a point of visiting him, but his sense of dissatisfaction remained.(not in
relation to his own career per se,
with which he pronounced himself “totally happy and satisfied†; it was, I
think more a question of respect, combined with what he saw as a lack of
opportunity for character actors of his era in today’s Spanish cinema). He was
particularly scathing about modern directors like Pedro Almodóvar and Ãlex de
la Iglesia, whom he dismissed as cliquish and talentless controversialists; and
certainly, watching a film like the latter’s 800 Bullets (2002), a supposed homage
to the glory days of AlmerÃa, one which should have provided a fitting send-off
for the likes of Aldo, Frank Braña, the late Lorenzo Robledo, and all the other
Spanish character actors and crew who sweated blood and broke bones to make the
Italian Western the phenomenon it became, it is easy to see his point.
But the grousing was only a small part of
Aldo’s character, which in all other respects was warm and generous and
good-hearted, with a sly sense of humour. He went out of his way to help me
with my work, fretting for hours over the details of his filmography in an
attempt to get things right, setting up meetings with Enzo Castellari (who was
working in Alicante at the time) and Antonio Ruiz (the “niño†of For a Few Dollars More and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly), and
uncomplainingly acting as translator between myself, Señora Cándida, and
Antonio. I visited him again in 2008 and would have done so last year had the
recession not put a serious crimp in my travel plans. I would have liked to
have seen Aldo again. I would like to have heard him deliver his well-practised
sign-off line one more time: “Remember, you be a good boy. But if you’re going
to be a bad boy, call me first!â€AdÃos,
Aldo, mi hermano espagnol. May you
ride the ramblas forever.
(John Exshaw's interview with Aldo Sanbrell appeared in Cinema Retro issue #8)