Tony Kendall (actor)

: "This article is about the actor. For the poker player, see Tony "tikay" Kendall.

Tony Kendall (born 22 August 1936 in Rome) as Luciano Stella is an Italian actor with over 50 film credits that reflect the trends of popular European cinema in the 60's, 70's and 80's.

Biography and filmography

Luciano Stella was formerly a model for Italian comics done in photographs. [ Blake, Matt "The Europspy Guide" Luminary Press (2004)] He changed his name to "Tony Kendall" at the suggestion of Vittorio De Sica [ibid] in the fashion of many Italian actors whose films were shown in countries outside of Italy in the days when European films proliferated.

Luciano Stella made his film debut in "Femminie Tre Volte" in 1959 but didn't make another appearance until he used his new name of Tony Kendall in "Brennus Enemy of Rome" (1963) one of the sword and sandal craze of films popular in the early 1960s. Kendall is most famous for his various teamings with Brad Harris, with the two predating Terence Hill and Bud Spencer as a popular and prolific action team. In the derivative world of the European cinema of the 1960s, Kendall and Harris first teamed up in two sauerkraut western films "inspired" by the successful German Karl May Winnetou series with Harris as a Lex Barker clone and Kendall as a Native American "Chief Black Eagle" in "Pirates of the Mississippi" (1963) and "Black Eagle of Santa Fe" (1965).

With the international success of the James Bond films and the German Jerry Cotton series, Kendall became best known for his role as private detective Joe Walker in the seven films of the Kommissar X series where he played opposite Brad Harris in the role of New York Police Captain Tom Rowland. With the success of "Batman (TV series)" Harris and Kendall also appeared together in "The Three Fantastic Supermen" (1967).

Kendall has prominently appeared in other varieties of European cinema in the 1960s such as horror ("The Whip and the Body" (1963), spaghetti westerns (as "Django" in "Django Against Sartana" (1970) and "Gunman of 100 Crosses" (1971)), and crime movies such as "Machine Gun McCain" (1968).

In the 1970s Kendall's name appeared in European versions of women in prison ("The Big Bust Out"(1972)) zombie horror "Eyes of the Blind Dead" (1973) and films inspired by "The Godfather (film)" ("Corleone"/"Father of the Godfathers" (1977)). Other than an appearance in "Alex l'ariete" (2000), Kendall's last film has been in "On the Dark Continent" in 1993.

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References