Andrea Aureli

Biography

Andrea Aureli (Terni, 5 March 1923 – Rome, 5 November 2007) was an Italian character actor, best known for playing villains and antagonists. His career, running from the early 1950s to the late 1990s, made him a familiar face in Italian popular cinema, particularly in adventure, sword-and-sandal and western productions.

Born in Terni, he completed his classical secondary education there before enrolling at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia in Rome, from which he graduated in 1947. From the early 1950s he worked steadily, often in mythological and epic films such as Ulysses and Hannibal, as well as swashbucklers and European westerns. In some genre titles he was credited under the stage name Andrew Ray. He also appeared in television films and series.

Aureli retired from acting in 1998 and died in Rome in November 2007, aged 84. His son Marco worked as a camera operator and occasionally as an actor. His legacy rests mainly on the gallery of wicked characters he helped establish in Italian genre cinema.

Key films

• Ulysses (1954)
• Hannibal (1959)
• Tiger of the Seven Seas (1962)
• Ursus and the Tartar Princess (1961)
• Last Days of Mussolini (1974)
• A Bullet for Sandoval (1969)