John Steiner
Encyclopedia
John Steiner is an English
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 actor. Tall, thin and gaunt, Steiner attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts and worked for a few years at the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

. Steiner featured in a lead role in a television production of Design for Living
Design for Living
Design for Living is a comedy play written by Noël Coward in 1932. It concerns a trio of artistic characters, Gilda, Otto and Leo, and their complicated three-way relationship. Originally written to star Lynn Fontanne, Alfred Lunt and Coward, it was premiered on Broadway, partly because its risqué...

by Noel Coward
Noël Coward
Sir Noël Peirce Coward was an English playwright, composer, director, actor and singer, known for his wit, flamboyance, and what Time magazine called "a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and chic, pose and poise".Born in Teddington, a suburb of London, Coward attended a dance academy...

. Later he found further work primarily in films. In the late 1960s, Steiner was hired to play a part in the spaghetti western
Spaghetti Western
Spaghetti Western, also known as Italo-Western, is a nickname for a broad sub-genre of Western films that emerged in the mid-1960s in the wake of Sergio Leone's unique and much copied film-making style and international box-office success, so named by American critics because most were produced and...

 Tepepa
Tepepa
Tepepa is is an Italian Zapata-themed spaghetti western film. It is probably the most known film directed by Giulio Petroni. The film was co-produced with Spain, where the film was released with the title Tepepa.....

. He found himself in demand in Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 and relocated there, specializing in playing villains in a great number of Italian B-movies and exploitation films. John Steiner has appeared in various genres of movies, including horror films and police actioners. He also became a favorite of famed Italian
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 filmmaker Tinto Brass
Tinto Brass
Giovanni Brass , better known as Tinto Brass, is an Italian filmmaker. He is noted especially for his work in the erotic genre, with films such as Così fan tutte , Paprika, Monella and Trasgredire...

 featuring in Salon Kitty
Salon Kitty
Salon Kitty was a Berlin brothel used by the SD for espionage purposes before and during World War II.In the 1930s Berlin, Salon Kitty was a high-class brothel in 11 Giesebrechtstrasse. Its usual clientele included German dignitaries and foreign diplomats...

alongside Ingrid Thulin
Ingrid Thulin
Ingrid Lilian Thulin was a Swedish film actress.-Biography:Thulin was born in Sollefteå, Ångermanland, northern Sweden, the daughter of Nanna and Adam Thulin, a fisherman...

 and Helmut Berger
Helmut Berger
Helmut Berger is an Austrian-born German film and television actor. He is most famous for his work with Luchino Visconti, particularly in his performance as King Ludwig II of Bavaria in Ludwig, for which he received a special David di Donatello award.He appears primarily in European cinema, but...

.

Steiner was in very steady demand until the late 1980s. As the Italian film industry dwindled, Steiner retired from acting in 1991 and relocated to California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

, where he became a real estate agent.

In the late 1990s a special magazine was started by Cranston McMillan's Also Press. Titled, John Steiner the zine was dedicated to Steiner's film, TV and stage work, featured reviews and helping fans trace prints of his more obscure Italian work, the publication triggered new interest in the happily retired star. Selling mainly in mainland Europe and the USA the zine ran until successfully 2005. A special large format issue ended the run. McMillan remains the best authority on John Steiner and has promised that his long awaited definitve work on the actors career will be with publishers soon.

Steiner has recently contributed to DVD extras on some of his films and given interviews about his Italian work.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK