Claudio Undari, in art Robert Hundar, owes his fame to over 80 films mostly western, where he took the role of the main character or antagonist, he specialized in the role of the” bad guy”. Claudio has also taken part in various adventure and comedy films. In these last years he appeared in numerous television films. He has also been a documentary and television director.

Claudio Undari talks about himself:

A small group of eighteen year-old boys dreamt of a world full of multicoloured lights, those kind of lights that only success can offer. The faces of that group were Pippo Baudo, Tony Cucchiara, Tuccio Musumeci, Giuseppe Patavina and Claudio Undari. Everyone of us went through a few theatrical experiences that never landed anywhere: our Sicilian accent contrasted our forecasts of success and it was quite difficult to match the need of the group with the different needs of each person. Pippo tried to do that by organizing a theatrical show that brought us to explore many little villages of our beautiful island, Sicily. The results were catastrophic. Our dreams, didn’t remain for a long time sealed in the drawer. Tony started his career as a singer and composer, Pippo, graduated and later succeeded in realizing his dream, becoming a television host, Tuccio and Giuseppe stayed in Catania acting in dialect in the theatre Piccolo di Catania, Angelo Musco’s territory.

After I graduated as a geometer, I decided to go to Rome. It was 1956. The first thing to do was to totally loose the Sicilian dialect accent, thing that I did attending a diction school, which kept me busy for many months. At the time I used to eat just a couple of suppli’ each day, as a consequence my weight started to shrink (I’m tall 1,97 mt), however it didn’t diminish the wish to stand before a film camera. I kept showing my photos to many film producers for a while. Then, the first strong emotions: I was chosen for a small role in a Vittorio Cottafavi’s film, Hercules’ Revenge. I interpreted Polimorfeo with the body of centaur and an Aries. A choice that Vittorio made since I was quite well built; special effects were conceived by Rambaldi. Other small roles came later, but I found myself at the corner. A beautiful melancholy, confined between the desire to succeed and depression; that feeling increased the day I read an article in a magazine with a photo of me as a centaur with Rambaldi beside me. The text said: ” What one has to do to survive..” I realized that I threw myself in a very difficult world, which was far away from what I had dreamt. A world, in those days, also made of compromises, of incongruities, of fake ness, quite pretentious. In other words, a world keen to respect only the strongest ones, those who were able to reach the top of the pyramid.

Claudio Undari. 2

English version edited by Daniele Piserchia

Scritto da Giulio Berruti martedì, 27 maggio 2008 alle ore 10:51 [Permalink]