Ferruccio Amendola

Born in Turin to actors Federico Amendola and Amelia Ricci and the nephew of director and screenwriter Mario Amendola, he was among Italy's most accomplished actors who worked for cinema and television and also did extensive voice dubbing work. Amendola moved to Rome with his family at a young age and he made his film debut at age 13 in Gian Burrasca directed by Sergio Tofano and continued working on cinema, television and theatre in his later years.^[1]

In 1945, Amendola made his voice-over debut dubbing over Vito Annicchiarico's role in the film Rome, Open City. By 1968, Amendola began devoting most of his time to voice-over acting and eventually became well known as an Italian voice dubbing pioneer.^[2] He was best known as the Italian voice of famous actors including Al Pacino, Sylvester Stallone, Dustin Hoffman, Robert De Niro and Tomas Milian in a majority of their movies.^[3] He also dubbed Peter Falk as well as Bill Cosby in the television series The Cosby Show as well as Cosby. In addition, he has done the voice over in commercials and TV dramas with great success.^[4]

From his relationship with his ex-wife Rita Savagnone who is a voice-over actress, he had two sons, Federico, who was named after his father and Claudio, who is also an actor. He also had a daughter, Silvia from his second marriage. Through Claudio, his granddaughter Alessia Amendola is a voice actress.

Amendola died of throat cancer in Rome on 3 September 2001 at the age of 71.^[5] He was interred at the Campo Verano.^[6]