Tomas Milian as
Eddie |
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| Heading up the cast is Tomas Milian. Tomas was born in Cuba. His
celebrated career spans over forty years, with over one hundred films
in Europe and the United States. He left Havana in 1957 to come to
New York City, where he was chosen by Lee Strasberg to join the prestigious
Actors Studio. Milian traveled to Italy in 1959 to appear in Jean
Cocteau's The Poet and the Muse, directed by Franco Zeffirelli, at
the Spoleto Festival. Filmmaker Mauro Bolognini spotted him and cast
Milian in La Notte Brava (1959), written by Italian poet/filmmaker
Pier Paolo Pasolini. Milian was subsequently cast in another film
written by Pasolini and directed by Bolognina, Il Bell'Antonio, with
Marcello Mastroianni and Claudia Cardinale. Milian would remain in
Italy for over two decades, starring a wide range of films, including
many popular westerns, as well as films by Italian master filmmakers
Bernardo Bertolucci (La Luna), Michaelangelo Antonioni (The Identification
of a Woman) and Luchino Visconti (Il Lavoro).
In the late 1970s/early 1980s, Milian also teamed with Bruno Corbucci
for a series of comic pictures centering around police inspector
Nico Giraldi. During his nearly 30 years in Italy, Milian received
two major awards for his work, the Antonio de Curtis Award for Comedy
and the Coppa Del Consiglio Dei Ministri from the Italian government.
Returning to the United States in the mid-1980s, Milian began a
new phase of his career with leading or supporting roles in a series
of American pictures, including Amistad, Fools Rush In, Havana,
JFK and The Yards. In 2000, Milian turned in a memorable performance
as the corrupt Gen. Arturo Salazar in Steven Soderbergh's "Traffic."
He has been seen frequently on TV in shows ranging from Oz to Law
and Order to UC: Undercover. |