Tomás Milián
Tomás Milián in Squadra volante (1974)
Born	Tomás Quintín Rodríguez (1933-03-03) March 3, 1933 (age 80) Havana, Cuba
Occupation	actor
Years active	1957–present
Spouse(s)	Margherita Valetti (1964–present)

Tomás Milián (born March 3, 1933) is a Cuban-American actor best known for having worked extensively in Italian films from the early 1960s to the late 1980s.

Career in Italy [edit]

Tomás Milián was born in Havana as Tomás Quintín Rodríguez, the son of a Cuban general. His father was arrested and jailed after dictator Fulgencio Batista took power in Cuba: he later committed suicide. Milián then decided to leave Cuba and pursue his wishes of being an actor.^[1] He settled in the United States to study at New York's Actors Studio^[2] and later became an American citizen.

After starting a career in the United States, he went to Italy in 1958 to take part to a theater festival in Spoleto.^[3] He eventually decided to relocate to Italy, where he lived for over 25 years, gradually becoming a very successful performer. His first film part in Italy was in the 1959 picture La notte brava. Although his voice was dubbed most of the time due to his accent, Milián performed his lines in Italian (or in English, depending on the film). He initially starred in arthouse movies and worked with directors such as Mauro Bolognini and Luchino Visconti.^[4]

After five years of making what he deemed "intellectual" movies, Milián was unhappy with his contract with producer Franco Cristaldi and thought of going back to the United States. Needing money to start over, he took the opportunity to star as a bandit in a spaghetti western called The Bounty Killer. This movie gave his career an unexpected boost,^[5] and ultimately resulted in his staying in Italy. Milián soon became a star of the spaghetti western genre,^[6] where he often played Mexican bandits or revolutionaries, roles in which he spoke in his real voice. As the spaghetti westerns dwindled, Milián remained a star in many genre films, playing both villains and heroes in various polizieschi movies. He starred with Barbara Bouchet in the giallo Non si sevizia un paperino.

He later turned to comedy, playing the recurrent characters of petty thief Monnezza and Serpico-like police officer Nico Giraldi in a variety of crime-comedy pictures. Although his voice was dubbed most of the time by Ferruccio Amendola, Milián wrote his own lines in Roman slang. Milián's inventive use of romanesco (roman dialect) made him somewhat of a cult performer in Italy, even though his later films were critically panned. Bruno Corbucci, the director of many of these films commented, "At the cinemas as soon as Tomás Milián appeared on the screen, when he made a wisecrack and in the heaviest situations, then it was a pandemonium, it was like being at the stadium." As Milián used similar makeups and accents in portraying both characters, Monnezza and Nico were occasionally confused by Italian audiences, who sometimes referred erroneously to them both as Monnezza, or Er Monnezza (Da trash in slang), and still closely associate Milián with these performances.^[7] Milián also occasionally appeared in non-genre pictures, such as Bernardo Bertolucci's La Luna, for which he won a Nastro d'Argento for Best supporting Actor, and Michelangelo Antonioni's Identification of a Woman.

Later career [edit]

As he grew older, Milián decided to go back to the United States. He appeared in Sidney Pollack's Havana, Steven Spielberg's Amistad, Steven Soderbergh's Traffic as well as Andy García's The Lost City, about Revolutionary Cuba. He has also played many roles on stage. He portrayed Generalisimo Rafael Leonidas Trujillo Molina in the film version of Mario Vargas Llosa's novel The Feast of the Goat.

Tomás Milián resides in Miami, Florida.

Partial filmography [edit]

Milian plays Alberto De Matteis in I Delfini (1960)

• Bad Girls Don't Cry (1959, Mauro Bolognini)
• Il bell'Antonio (1960, Mauro Bolognini)
• L'imprevisto (1960, Alberto Lattuada)
• I Delfini (1960, Francesco Maselli)
• A Day for Lionhearts (1961, Nanni Loy)
• Boccaccio '70 (1962, Luchino Visconti)
• Gli indifferenti (1965, Francesco Maselli)
• Madamigella di Maupin (1965, Mauro Bolognini)
• The Agony and the Ecstasy (1965, Carol Reed)
• The Bounty Killer (1966, Eugenio Martin)
• La resa dei conti (1966, Sergio Sollima)
• Faccia a faccia (1967, Sergio Sollima)
• Django Kill (1967, Giulio Questi)
• Bandits in Milan (1968, Carlo Lizzani)
• Death Sentence (1968, Mario Lanfranchi)
• Run, Man, Run! (1968, Sergio Sollima)
• Tepepa (1968, Giulio Petroni)
• Vamos a matar, compañeros (1970, Sergio Corbucci)
• Viva Cangaceiro (1970, Giovanni Fago)
• The Cannibals (1970, Liliana Cavani)
• The Last Movie (1971, Dennis Hopper)
• Don't Torture a Duckling (1972, Lucio Fulci)
• Sonny and Jed (1972, Sergio Corbucci)
• Ripped Off (1972, Franco Prosperi)
• Milano odia: la polizia non può sparare (1974, Umberto Lenzi)
• La polizia accusa: il servizio segreto uccide (1975, Sergio Martino)
• Il giustiziere sfida la città (1975, Umberto Lenzi)
• The White, the Yellow, and the Black (1975, Sergio Corbucci)
• I quattro dell'apocalisse (1975, Lucio Fulci)
• Sex with a Smile (1976, Sergio Martino)
• Roma a mano armata (1976, Umberto Lenzi)
• The Cop in Blue Jeans (1976, Bruno Corbucci)
• The Twist (1976, Claude Chabrol)
• Squadra antifurto (1976, Bruno Corbucci)
• The Cynic, the Rat and the Fist (1977, Umberto Lenzi)
• Il trucido e lo sbirro (1977, Umberto Lenzi)
• La banda del gobbo (1977, Umberto Lenzi)
• La banda del trucido (1977, Stelvio Massi)
• Squadra antitruffa (1977, Bruno Corbucci)
• Squadra antimafia (1978, Bruno Corbucci)
• Squadra antigangsters (1979, Bruno Corbucci)
• Assassinio sul Tevere (1979, Bruno Corbucci)
• La Luna (1979, Bernardo Bertolucci)
• Winter Kills (1979, William Richert)
• Delitto a Porta Romana (1980, Bruno Corbucci)
• Manolesta (1981, Pasquale Festa Campanile)
• Delitto al ristorante cinese (1981, Bruno Corbucci)
• Delitto sull'autostrada (1982, Bruno Corbucci)
• Identification of a Woman (1982, Michelangelo Antonioni)
• Cane e gatto (1982 Bruno Corbucci)
• Delitto in Formula Uno (1983, Bruno Corbucci)
• Delitto al Blue Gay (1984, Bruno Corbucci)
• Salome (1986, Claude d'Anna)
• Cat Chaser (1989, Abel Ferrara)
• Revenge (1990, Tony Scott)
• Money (1991, Steven Hilliard Stern)
• JFK (1991, Oliver Stone)
• Frannie's Turn (TV, 1992, Sam Weisman)
• The Burning Season (1994, John Frankenheimer)
• The Cowboy Way (1994)
• Amistad (1997, Steven Spielberg)
• Traffic (2000, Steven Soderbergh)
• The Yards (2000, James Gray)
• The Hire: Ambush (short, 2001, John Frankenheimer)
• Washington Heights (2002)
• The Lost City (2005, Andy García)

References [edit]

Further reading [edit]

• Giorgio Navarro, Fabio Zanello, Tomas Milian. Er cubbano de Roma, Molino, 1999. ISBN 8890035935.
• Max Serio, Tomas Milian: The Tough Bandit, the Rough Cop and the Filthy Rat in Italian Cinema, Mediane, 2009. ISBN 8896042127.
• Gordiano Lupi, Tomas Milian, il trucido e lo sbirro, Profondo Rosso Editore, 2011. ISBN 8889084502.

External links [edit]

• Tomás Milián at the Internet Movie Database
• Tomás Milián interview (Italian)
• Fansite about Italian genre cinema, including a tribute page to Tomás Milián (English)
• Tomas Milian in The Designated Victim - TCM's Movie Morlocks

v t e Nastro d'Argento Award for Best supporting Actor Gino Cervi (1946)  · Massimo Serato (1947)  · Nando Bruno (1948)  · Saro Urzì (1949)  · Umberto Spadaro (1951)  · Gabriele Ferzetti (1953) · Alberto Sordi (1954)  · Paolo Stoppa (1955)  · Memmo Carotenuto (1956)  · Peppino De Filippo (1957)  · Andrea Checchi (1958)  · Nino Vingelli (1959)  · Claudio Gora (1960)  · Enrico Maria Salerno (1961)  · Salvo Randone (1962)  · Romolo Valli (1963)  · Folco Lulli (1964)  · Leopoldo Trieste (1965)  · Ugo Tognazzi (1966)  · Gastone Moschin (1967)  · Gabriele Ferzetti (1968)  · Ettore Mattia (1969)  · Umberto Orsini / Fanfulla (1970)  · Romolo Valli (1971) · Salvo Randone (1972)  · Mario Carotenuto (1973)  · Turi Ferro (1974)  · Aldo Fabrizi (1975)  · Ciccio Ingrassia (1976)  · Romolo Valli (1977)  · Carlo Bagno (1978)  · Vittorio Mezzogiorno (1979)  · Tomás Milián (1980)  · Massimo Girotti (1981)  · Paolo Stoppa (1982)  · Tino Schirinzi (1983)  · Leo Gullotta (1984)  · Leopoldo Trieste (1985)  · Gastone Moschin (1986)  · Diego Abatantuono (1987)  · Enzo Cannavale (1988)  · Fabio Bussotti (1989) · Alessandro Haber (1990)  · Ennio Fantastichini (1991)  · Paolo Bonacelli (1992)  · Renato Carpentieri (1993)  · Alessandro Haber (1994)  · Marco Messeri (1995)  · Leopoldo Trieste (1996)  · Gianni Cavina (1997)  · Giustino Durano (1998)  · Antonio Catania / Riccardo Garrone / Vittorio Gassman / Giancarlo Giannini / Adalberto Maria Merli / Eros Pagni / Stefano Antonucci / Giorgio Colangeli / Giuseppe Gandini / Valter Lupo / Paolo Merloni / Carlo Molfese / Sergio Nicolai / Corrado Olmi / Mario Patanè / Pierfrancesco Poggi / Francesco Siciliano / Giorgio Tirabassi / Venantino Venantini / Andrea Cambi (1999)  · Felice Andreasi (2000)  · Giancarlo Giannini (2001)  · Leo Gullotta (2002)  · Diego Abatantuono (2003)  · Arnoldo Foà (2004)  · Raffaele Pisu (2005)  · Carlo Verdone (2006)  · Alessandro Haber (2007)  · Alessandro Gassman (2008)  · Ezio Greggio (2009)  · Ennio Fantastichini / Luca Zingaretti (2010)  · Giuseppe Battiston (2011)  · Marco Giallini (2012) Category