Lino Ventura Movies or Tv Shows (upto May 2024) - Watch Online

One of France's most beloved character stars from the 1950s through and including the 1980s was the Italian-born Lino Ventura. Born Angiolino Joseph Pascal Ventura to Giovanni Ventura and Luisa Borrini, on July 14, 1919, in Parma (northern) Italy, young Lino moved with his family at a young age to Paris, where he grew up. A school dropout at age eight, Lino drifted from job to job (mechanic's apprentice, etc.), unable to decide on what to do for a living. Marrying in 1942 at age 23, he and wife Odette had four children.Lino finally found a career calling as a Greek/Roman-styled wrestler and went on to become a professional European champion in 1950. He was forced to abandon this sporting life, however, after incurring a serious injury in the ring. Looking for gangster types for his next film, director Jacques Becker gave the inexperienced 34-year-old his first acting job as bad guy support to star Jean Gabin in the crime thriller Wenn es Nacht wird in Paris (1954) [Grisbi]. Gabin was impressed and did more than just encourage Lino to pursue acting as a living. Lino went on to appear with Gabin in several of the star's subsequent movies, often playing a gangster, including Razzia in Paris (1955) [Razzia], Schuld und Sühne (1956), Die Nacht bricht an (1957) [Crime and Punishment] and Kommissar Maigret stellt eine Falle (1958) [Inspector Maigret].A tough, brutish, burly-framed presence, Lino came into his own as a tough-nut character star in the 1960s playing both sides of the moral fence. Adept in both light comedy and dark-edged drama, he appeared in scores of films now considered classic French cinema. His homely, craggy-looking mug took the form of various criminals types as in Der zweite Atem (1966) [Second Breath] and Ein glückliches Jahr (1973) [Happy New Year], as well as dogged, good-guy inspectors in Adieu Bulle (1975) [The French Detective], Die Macht und ihr Preis (1976) [Illustrious Corpses'], and Das Verhör (1981). Lino bore a patented weight-of-the-world-on-his-shoulders countenance that audiences sympathized with, even when playing the arch-villain. Over the course of three decades he built up an impressive gallery of blue-collar protagonists. Not to be missed are his embittered, vengeful husband in Der Mörder kam um Mitternacht (1959) [Witness in the City]; corrupt police chief Tiger Brown in Die Dreigroschenoper (1963) [The Threepenny Opera]; a WWII French Resistance fighter in Armee im Schatten (1969) [Army in the Shadows]; and Mafia boss Vito Genovese in Charles Bronson's Die Valachi-Papiere (1972), among many, many others. Toward the end of his career he played Jean Valjean in a French production of Die Legion der Verdammten (1982) for which he received a Cesar award nomination (i.e, the French "Oscar"). He performed practically until the time of his fatal heart attack in 1987 at age 68 in his beloved France. Survivors included his wife of 45 years and children. Daughter Mylene died in a plane crash in 1998 and wife Odette died in 2013. - IMDb Mini Biography By: Gary Brumburgh / gr-home@pacbell.net

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