Enzo Cerusico

Enzo Cerusico (22 October 1937 – 1 July 1991) was an Italian film actor. He appeared in 55 films between 1951 and 1984.

Career in the United States

Cerusico's first role on American television was in an episode of I Spy being filmed in Rome in 1966. Producer Sheldon Leonard held a casting call for an English-speaking actor to play the kid brother of the female Italian guest star. Cerusico spoke no English but with a friend's help he memorized one line — "I studied English in the school since four years" — and managed to bluff his way into an interview with Leonard.

Leonard realized Cerusico wasn't fluent in English but he thought the young man possessed "Jean Paul Belmondo's jaunty virility and the swaggering charm of Maurice Chevalier." Leonard chose Cerusico for the I Spy guest role and Cerusico learned his lines phonetically and delivered them by rote.

Cerusico later played the title character in My Friend Tony, an hour-long crime drama that aired on NBC in 1969.

Personal life

Cerusico's family had hoped he would follow tradition and become a physician. But during his teen years, Cerusico realized he wouldn't be a good doctor and decided he "didn't want to be one among many, a mediocre."

Cerusico was married to Tiziana, an Italian journalist.

While living in Los Angeles during filming of My Friend Tony, Enzo and Tiziana learned English by reading Ernest Hemingway's short stories and watching Walter Cronkite's evening newscasts. The couple used an audio tape recorder to record the CBS Evening News each night and replayed the tape three times, Enzo said: "First for the separate words, then for the sentences and finally to find out what the news was."

Publicity materials in 1969 for My Friend Tony gave the 32-year-old Cerusico's age as 25.

Selected filmography

• Red Shirts (1952)
• It's Never Too Late (1953)
• Guendalina (1957)
• Ghosts of Rome (1961)
• Duel of Fire (1962)
• Faustina (1968)
• The Dead Are Alive (1972)
• No, the Case Is Happily Resolved (1973)
• The Five Days aka Le Cinque Giornate (1973)