Ten fun facts about Lino Ventura

Fact 1
He was born as Angiolino Giuseppe Pasquale Ventura in Parma, Italy.

Fact 2
He dropped out of school at the age of eight and later took on a variety of jobs.

Fact 3
Although he was Italian, he only made a handful of films in his native language, among them The Last Judgement (Il giudizio universale, 1961), Illustrious Corpses (Cadaveri eccellenti, 1976) and Cento Giorni a Palermo (1983), long used to seeing him dubbed into Italian from the original French release.

Fact 4
At one point Ventura was pursuing a prizefighting and professional wrestling career but had to end it because of an injury.

Fact 5
In 1953, totally by happenstance, one of his friends mentioned him to Jacques Becker who was looking for an Italian actor to play opposite Jean Gabin in a gangster movie called Touchez pas au grisbi.

Fact 6
Becker offered him on the spot the role of Angelo, that Ventura refused at first but then accepted. He had such a presence in the movie that the whole profession took notice.

Fact 7
Throughout his career, he was one of the most popular actors of French cinema.

Fact 8
He spoke French without any accent (if not a Parisian one, in the beginning).

Fact 9
Ventura started to build up an acting career in similar hard-boiled gangster movies, often playing beside his friend Jean Gabin.

Fact 10
Having a handicapped daughter himself, he created a charitable foundation, Perce-Neige (Snowdrop), in 1966, which supports handicapped people.

More interesting reads about...

Vincent Cassel

is a Cesar Award-winning French actor best known to English-speaking audiences through his film performances in Ocean's Twelve and Ocean's Thirteen, as well as Black Swan

Michael Caine

Is a British born actor who has played a wide variety of characters over the course of his career.

Joe Pesci

Is a well-known Italian-American actor who has a long versatile career playing mostly criminals who were more lovable and bumbling rather than villainous.