FERNANDO SANCHO

(1916-90, Zaragoza, Spain)

Arizona Colt

Ebullient, bulky, jowly character actor, the quintessential Mexican bandido in more than 50 European-made westerns. Seemingly ubiquitous in the Sixties, his acting style was big on bluster and gesture, in roles both comedic and sadistic (often simultaneously).

The Return of Ringo

Fought in the Civil War on the side of the victorious franquistas, and subsequently joined the police. Worked as a voice actor on radio before starting in films in the Forties, a protégé of influential director/actor Florián Rey, a fellow Zaragozano. Among numerous largely forgotten titles – commercial quickies by the likes of Ignacio Iquino and Rafael Gil – there was the occasional spark (Bardem’s Death of a Cyclist). Small roles in international blockbusters shot in Spain: the Samuel Bronston epics King of Kings and 55 Days at Peking; Lawrence of Arabia (as a Turkish soldier who apprehends the titular hero).

With Anthony Steffen in Killer Kid

His work rate increased exponentially in the Sixties, heyday of the profitable co-production. Segued from pepla to westerns; in these he was mentored by Joaquín Luis Romero Marchent, the grandfather (if Leone is the father) of the modern European western, who cast him as roguish but sympathetic sidekicks. In a similar vein, he created a forerunner of Tuco in Alfonso Balcázar’s Pistoleros de Arizona and its sequel, Viva Carrancho.

His role as piratical bandit Ortiz in Sergio Corbucci’s Minnesota Clay was a turning point. Thereafter he appeared almost invariably as a bombastic villain, often a self-styled generalissimo, chest puffed out with bluster and heaving with meaningless medals. He often piled on the pomposity to humorous effect – A Pistol for Ringo; If You Meet Sartana… Pray for Your Death – but could also play pathos: (surrogate) paternal pride in Seven Dollars on the Red; a bout of drunken introspection in Killer Kid. The role of Reyes in the caper western The Boldest Job in the West even gave him the chance to play a (reluctant) hero.

Wanted Johnny Texas

He remained prolific in the Seventies and Eighties in domestic productions and genre films (he wasn’t too proud for nudity – see the ominously titled In the Folds of the Flesh if you dare). Worked many times with his old friend Rafael Gil and returned to the western from time to time (the bawdy ‘all-star’ comedy Al este del oeste, 1983).

With Patty Shepard in The Boldest Job in the West

Remembered fondly by fellow actors, although his grandstanding style was not always to the taste of his Yankee co-stars: “He had a great face and was a really good guy,” Robert Woods told me. “I enjoyed [working with him], but keeping up with him and stopping him chewing the scenery was a different matter.”

Five standout roles

As the slovenly Ortiz in Minnesota Clay, Sancho almost single-handedly alters the complexion of this dour early Sergio Corbucci western, which takes on a grubbier texture that oozes from his first appearance.

As an uncouth outlaw in A Pistol for Ringo, he is comically flummoxed and flustered, repeatedly wrong-footed by both genteel Antonio Casas and irreverent gunfighter Giuliano Gemma. (Sancho’s character shared his surname – not for the last time in a western.)

As Carrancho in Pistoleros de Arizona and Viva Carrancho, he essayed a knavish hero in the picaresque mode. Cunning, self-serving yet courageous, he resembles a Tuco-esque bandit in the first film, a precursor of Cuchillo in the second, in which he foments a small-scale peasant revolt.

As the mulish Vilar in Killer Kid, he transforms, via moments of self-pity and selfish pride, from trigger-happy thug to committed revolutionary, under the tutelage of a patriarchal intellectual.

As a gruff but good-natured bank robber in The Boldest Job in the West, he wins the heart, implausibly, of the sensuous Patty Shepard, and the amity of the town to which he inadvertently returns the stolen gold. Sancho’s engaging portrayal earned an award from his peers in the national show-business union.
Kevin Grant