Biography
Terence Hill (born Mario Girotti March 29, 1939 in Venice) is an Italian-born actor. As a child he lived in the small village Lommatzsch, Germany where he survived World War II. His mother was German, his father an Italian chemist.
After being discovered by Italian filmmaker Dino Risi for Vacanze col gangster (1951) (Holiday with the Gangster) at an early age of 12, he had, after 27 movies in Italy, a major film-role in Luchino Visconti's The Leopard (Il Gattopardo, 1963). In 1964 he returned to Germany and there appeared in a series of Heimatfilmen, adventure and western films, made after novels by German author Karl May. In 1967, he returned to Italy to act in God Forgives, I don't (Dio perdona... Io no!, 1968). He changed his name to Terence Hill in the same year. The name was made up, as a publicity stunt, by the film producers and it was taken from the Roman scholar Terence and his wife's surname (his wife was Lori Hill).
In the following years, he starred in many action and western films (so-called Spaghetti Westerns) together with his long time partner Bud Spencer. The pair were notable for their funny films, successful not only in Italy.
Possibly their most famous film is the 1971 western Lo chiamavano Trinità (They Call Me Trinity) and the 1972 sequel Continuavano a chiamarlo Trinità (Trinity is Still My Name). In Il mio nome è Nessuno (My Name is Nobody, 1973) his co-star was the American screen-legend and Western-experienced Henry Fonda, who also acted in Once upon a time in the west (C'era una volta il West, 1968) of director Sergio Leone.
Hill suffered of depression after the death of his son in 1988. He later recovered and started a successfull TV fiction career.
