Franco Garofalo

Franco Garofalo (18 April 1946 – 22 August 2019), sometimes credited as "Frank Garfield", was an Italian character actor and writer. He is best-known for his role as Zantoro, an eccentric but good-intentioned commando soldier, in the 1980 zombie horror film Hell of the Living Dead, as well as for various roles in independent productions of Italian cinema in the 1970s and 1980s.

Early life Franco Garofalo was born in Naples, Italy in 1946. He was the son of an affluent lawyer in the 1950s postwar climate. He attended various schools and would perform amateur acting and poetry for fun. When Garofalo was six years old, his father was stricken with an unknown illness, which progressed until his death when Garofalo was 11 years old. Little is known about Garofalo's early life beyond this incident, although he did get married and had a daughter during the span of his acting career.

Career Garofalo's initial acting roles were in minor parts for cast extras and side characters, although by the late 1970s, he started receiving more important roles and varied character parts. This included numerous roles in Italian crime thriller films, such as that of Luca in La Bravata, and roles in Seagulls Fly Low and La banda Vallanzasca, all of which received attention in Roberto Curti's Italian Crime Filmography, establishing his rising prominence in 1970s Italian cinema. Garofalo became internationally-recognized after starring as Zantoro in Bruno Mattei's 1980 zombie horror film Hell of the Living Dead, a film which was later dubbed in English and released in North America and the United Kingdom. Hell of the Living Dead received a cult following, which later led to a featurette documentary called Bonded by Blood released on the Blu-ray disc edition of the film. Claudio Fragasso, who served as co-writer and co-director in Hell of the Living Dead, noted in Bonded by Blood that Franco Garofalo's portrayal of his character's eccentric and increasingly unstable nature was largely improvised by Garofalo himself, including scenes where Zantoro would deliberately provoke and walk into hordes of zombies for fun. Garofalo was popular with the rest of the cast, who found his madcap antics amusing. This led to a platonic friendship with co-actress Margit Evelyn Newton, who remembered him fondly as a nice man; Newton had played the film's lead female, a television reporter named Lia Rousseau.

Prior to the advent of internet film metadata banks, Garofalo was often unrecognized for his own roles, owing largely to his Italian name being replaced in credits with an Anglican variant. This included "Frank Garfield" (Hell of the Living Dead) and "Frank Garland" (Hercules).

In 2002, Garofalo worked on writing and directing his own project, a short film titled Schizofrenia di un attore (English: "Schizophrenia of an Actor"), which he had started in 1982 and completed in 2002. The completed film was uploaded to his official YouTube channel.

Later life Franco Garofalo suffered from severe physical and mental health issues for most of his post-1980s career and life,

Death Franco Garofalo died in Rome, Italy on August 22, 2019, from advanced-stage lung cancer. He was 73 years old. Blue Underground, the corporation that had released the Blu-ray double feature disc of Hell of the Living Dead and Rats: Night of Terror, released a statement on Facebook saying, "RIP Franco Garofalo. He was interviewed for our HELL OF THE LIVING DEAD release, and couldn't have been more pleasant. His performance in that film is of course completely unforgettable. We'll see you on the other side!"

Filmography Year Title Role 1972 Lo chiamavano Verità Misery 1972 Canterbury proibito Pilgrim 1973 Sex of the Witch Tony the Butler 1973 Ingrid sulla strada Man of Renato 1974 The Arena Aemilius 1974 Eroi all'inferno Pratt 1975 Un urlo dalle tenebre Sabbath Leader 1976 Squadra antiscippo Garba 1976 Colt 38 Special Squad Gilbert Delange / Giampiero Manni 1977 A Year of School (TV Movie) Wieselberg 1977 La banda Vallanzasca Pino 1977 La bravata Luca 1978 Seagulls Fly Low Killer 1978 Eyes Behind the Stars Peter Collins 1978 The Iron Commissioner Bruno 1979 Ciao nì! Scienziato Nero 1980 La vera storia della monaca di Monza Don Paolo Arrigone / Priest 1980 Hell of the Living Dead Zantoro 1981 The Other Hell Boris 1982 The Scorpion with Two Tails Gianni Andrucci 1983 Hercules The Thief 1988 The Witches' Sabbath Medico del '600 1988 Dags Cheryl's Dad 2002 Schizofrenia di un attore Various 2015 Help Me Have No Human Ways Student (voice) 2020 Corona Zombies Argento (posthumous role)

Filmography excludes roles in television shows, except for made-for-TV films and short films.