Lando Buzzanca

Gerlando Buzzanca (born August 24 1935) is an Italian comedy actor.

He left high school in his native Palermo when he was 16 years old, and moved to Rome to pursue his dream of becoming an actor. In order to survive, he took many jobs: waiter, furniture mover, and a brief appearance as a slave in the film Ben-Hur.

In his long career he often interpreted the role of the average Italian immigrant from southern Italy, who slowly began to enjoy moderate success during the years of the Italian economic miracle. His films showcased all the freshness of the 1960s, the 1970s and the heavier transition to the 1980s, focusing on the common life in several Italian cities such as Rome, Verona or Milan, balanced between personal happiness and professional achievement.

Buzzanca often interpreted roles of a subordinate "white collar" worker, with a heavyvein of machismo, as a frustrated employee who tries to redeem his dull existence with his virility.He became famous for his role in the film "Il merlo maschio", ("The Male Blackbird"), where in a provincial environment of cultural importance, like it is the philharmonic orchestra of the Arena di Verona, he vents out his own frustrations, indulging into candaulism when he induces his bride to expose her naked body in the middle of a bridge in Verona.

Some critics, in a lighter vein, has defined Buzzanca as an "Homo eroticus":a human being halfway between "Homo erectus", and "Homo sapiens", who risked extinction in the 1970s, because of the harsh struggle with feminismactivists. Today, even if fortunately much less important, this human type is stillvery present between the Italian male.

Buzzanca's fame is greater in foreign countries that in his nativeland, and in countries as France, Japan, Greece, Israel, Spain and
Switzerland, he is a renowned international stereotype of the Italian provincialotto, elegant, naif, always causing mischief, and not obtaining anything from it.

Partial filmography

* "Incidenti" (2005).
* "Mio figlio" (2005, TV film).
* "Come inguaiammo il cinema italiano" (2004).
* "Il segreto del giaguaro" (2000)
* "Il popolo degli uccelli" (1999)
* "Tutti gli anni una volta all'anno" (1988).
* "Secondo Ponzio Pilato" (1988).
* "Vado a vivere da solo" (1982)
* "Travolto dagli affetti familiari" (1978)
* "San Pasquale Baylonne protettore delle donne (1976)
* "Il gatto mammone" (1975)
* "Bello come un arcangelo" (1974)
* "L'arbitro" (1973)
* "La schiava io ce l’ho e tu no" (1972)
* "All'onorevole piacciono le donne" (1972).
* "Jus primae noctis" (1972)
* "Il vichingo venuto dal Sud" (1971)
* "Homo Eroticus" (1971)
* "Il merlo maschio" (1971)
* "Fermate il mondo…voglio scendere" (1970)
* "La prima notte del Dottor Danieli, industriale col complesso del... giocattolo" (1970)
* "Puro siccome un angelo papà mi fece monaco…di Monza" (1969)
* "After the Fox" (1966)
* "James Tont Operazione D.U.E." (1966)
* "Le Corniaud" (1965)
* "James Tont Operazione U.N.O." (1965)
* "Il magnifico cornuto" (1964).
* "Divorzio all'italiana" (1961).

See also

* Laura Antonelli
* Il merlo maschio

External links

*imdb name|id=125627|name=Lando Buzzanca
* [http://www.ranierispettacoli.org/view.php3?id=5&file=buzzanca "Homo Eroticus" according to Ranieri Spettacoli]