Franco Giraldi

Franco Giraldi (11 July 1931 – 2 December 2020) was an Italian film director and screenwriter.

Franco Giraldi
Born	(1931-07-11)11 July 1931 Comeno, Kingdom of Italy now Komen, Slovenia
Died	2 December 2020(2020-12-02) (aged 89) Trieste, Italy
Occupation(s)	Film director, screenwriter

Life and career

Born in Komen from an Italian father and a Slovene mother,^[1] Giraldi spent his childhood and adolescence between the Carso, Trieste and Gorizia. During the Second World War, still in minor age, he helped the Italian partisans.^[2]

His first professional contact with the world of cinema was as a film critic from the pages of the newspaper L'Unità.^[2] Later Giraldi had the opportunity to work as assistant director of, among others, Gillo Pontecorvo, Giuseppe De Santis, Sergio Corbucci and Sergio Leone. Shortly after his work with Leone in A Fistful of Dollars Giraldi directed his first Spaghetti Western, Seven Guns for the MacGregors, released in 1966.^[3]

After four westerns, in which he used the pseudonyms of Frank Garfield and Frank Prestand,^[4] in 1968 Giraldi directed his first film with his real name, the commedia all'italiana La bambolona. After some other comedies he dedicated himself to literary adaptations.^[2]

Giraldo died from COVID-19 on 2 December 2020, at the age of 89, amidst the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy.^[5]

Filmography

• Seven Guns for the MacGregors (1966)
• Sugar Colt (1967)
• Up the MacGregors! (1967)
• A Minute to Pray, a Second to Die (1968)
• La bambolona (1968)
• Lonely Hearts (1970)
• La supertestimone (1971)
• Gli ordini sono ordini (1972)
• La rosa rossa (1973)
• Il lungo viaggio (1975)
• Colpita da improvviso benessere (1976)
• Un anno di scuola (1977)
• La giacca verde (1980)
• Il corsaro (1985)
• The Border (1996)
• L'avvocato Porta (TV-series, 1997–99)
• Voci (2000)
• Delitto e Castigo (2007)^[6]