If you’re like me and grew up in Fiji on a happy diet of cheap movies and piles of hand labelled video cassettes, the passing of Bud Spencer might bring back a few memories..
As half of “Bud Spencer and Terrance Hill“, who could have missed the lovable big man who never seemed to lose a buturaki and was always coming to the rescue of Terrance Hill. With simple story lines and loads of action, the adventures of this Italian pair were part of a great period of my life.
When I looked them up, they were classed as “Spaghetti Western“. I never quite understood what it meant by Spaghetti Western. In my mind, it was John Wayne directed by Mel Brooks. Apparently though, I was wrong, and the genre belongs to those English language films made cheaply in Europe by European directors (chiefly Italian, hence ‘Spaghetti’). Bud Spencer and Terrance Hill movies were definitely centre of this genre. Heck, I didn’t even know they were Italians. The child version of me imagined Americans with a regional accent.
Although we got our fill of these two in the 80’s, as video tape became popular, many of their adventures were filmed in the 70’s, but still, looking at photos of much older Bud Spencer I’m reminded of how much time has passed and at 86 he’s finally come to “The End”.
Thank you Mr Spencer for some great childhood memories. Thank you for being silly, fun and a hero to so many of us here in Fiji.
Qai nomuni na vakacegu Bud Spencer.
