FERZETTI, GABRIELE

Contributed by: The James Bond Movie Encyclopedia by Steven Jay Rubin

(March 17, 1925–December 2, 2015; birth name Pasquale Ferzetti): Suave Italian leading man who portrayed Marc-Ange Draco, the head of the Union Corse crime organization in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. He’s also the father of Contessa Teresa “Tracy” di Vicenzo (Diana Rigg), wife-to-be of Bond (George Lazenby). Well-groomed and impeccably mannered, Ferzetti’s Draco is probably one of the most sympathetic Mafia dons ever presented on screen. Note: Ferzetti’s voice was redubbed by actor David de Keyser.

A native of Rome, Ferzetti made his feature film debut during World War II, when he was featured in director Luigi Chiarini’s romantic drama Via delle cinque lune (“Street of the Five Moons,”1942). American audiences first took note of Ferzetti when he starred as Fabius Maximus opposite Victor Mature in Hannibal (1959). The year before he did On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, Ferzetti portrayed Morton the railroad baron in director Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in the West (1968).

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