The unveiling of a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in honor of actor Giancarlo Giannini took place yesterday in Los Angeles. The Italian actor with a multi-year career in cinema, which also includes a nomination for an Oscar for Best Actor, dedicated the star to the late Italian director Lina Wertmiller with whom he had many years of collaboration.

“This is a great moment and I’m very happy to be here,” Giannini said at the unveiling ceremony. “I want to thank those who thought of giving me this star,” he said and added: “I dedicate the star to a wonderful director, her name is Lina Wertmiller, she created me and I’m sure she’s waiting for me up there, maybe to make other films.”

Film producers Miles Gregg Wilson and Barbara Broccoli and Tiziana Rocca artistic director of the Los Angeles Film Festival for Italian Cinema were among the guests at the ceremony.

Wilson produced 15 James Bond films, and Broccoli, his half-sister, produced or co-produced films in the Casino Royale franchise and Quantum of Solace, in which Giannini played French agent Rene Matisse.

Born in 1942 in La Spezia, Italy, Giannini studied at the D’Amico Academy of Dramatic Art in Rome. Among the first plays in which he participated were contemporary Italian plays and the productions of Franco Zeffirelli “Romeo and Juliet” and “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”.

Giannini made his film and television debut in 1965, starring in the psychological thriller ‘Libido’ and the mini-series ‘David Copperfield’, an adaptation of Charles Dickens’ novel that aired on the Italian network Rai.

Giancarlo Giannini

Wertmiller directed the Italian actor in his Oscar-nominated performance in Seven Beauties and also in The Seduction of Mimi, Love & Anarchy, Swept Away, A Night Full of Rain, Blood Feud’ and ‘Francesca and Nunziata’.