Cesare Danova was a tall, dark, and handsome Italian actor who was a true Renaissance man. As a boy, he was expected to become a doctor, but he studied medicine with such diligence that he suffered a nervous breakdown shortly before taking his degree. During his recovery, he was sent to see Dino De Laurentiis, a famous Italian producer, who was impressed and gave Danova a screen test. Danova's career as an Italian Errol Flynn began with the lead role in La figlia del capitano (1947),and he went on to play the dashing lead in almost 20 European films.
Known for his aristocratic bearing, Danova often played noblemen. At six feet four, he was an expert athlete, a fencing champion by age 15, and a member of the Italian National Rugby Team by age 17. He was also an amateur swimming champion, an expert horseman and polo player, and a master archer. Danova won the Robin Hood Trophy when he shot and embedded one arrow inside another arrow within the target's bull's eye. He was a licensed pilot who flew his own planes and owned a library of over 3,000 books, each written in one of the five languages he knew - Italian, English, Spanish, French, and German.
Danova loved the theater and appeared onstage in Rome, Venice, Spain, New York, and Los Angeles. He was in the habit of carrying a small leprechaun good luck charm and a shamrock, which he had bought in Ireland. He traveled to the Emerald Isle many times, saying, "I love Ireland and I go there every chance I get."
In 1955, Danova was spotted by MGM's head of talent in the German-backed Don Giovanni (1955),his first film shown in the U.S. Impressed, the studio signed Danova to a long-term contract, and he traded his flourishing career in Europe for Hollywood. Rumors abounded that MGM had found its Ben-Hur for the upcoming super-epic remake by director William Wyler. Although Danova was brought to America by Wyler to be groomed for the lead role, he was eventually cast as the lover of Leslie Caron in the now-forgotten The Man Who Understood Women (1959),starring Henry Fonda.
Danova's American film debut was in Los Angeles opposite Paul Muni in a musical version of Grand Hotel (1932). When it flopped, he traveled to Cuba to appear in Catch Me If You Can (1959),a film starring Gilbert Roland and Dina Merrill. Financed by soon-to-be-deposed Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista, it was apparently never released. Danova's American television debut was in a first-season episode of The Rifleman (1958) called 'Duel of Honor,' the first of three appearances.
Cesare Danova got a second chance at stardom when he was cast as Cleopatra's court advisor, Apollodorus, in the Cleopatra (1963),starring Elizabeth Taylor. As originally scripted, Danova's character was to be Cleopatra's lover, servicing her when she wasn't being romanced by costars Rex Harrison and Richard Burton. However, the real-life love affair between Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton became a world-wide media sensation, and Danova's performance was largely cut from the film.
In his early years in America, Danova turned down the opportunity to appear as a series regular on TV for fear of being typecast and locked out of movies altogether. When he finally accepted, it was for the WWII ensemble cast Garrison's Gorillas (1967),a show patterned somewhat after The Dirty Dozen (1967). Danova appeared as actor, a con man, expert at disguises and spreading disinformation behind the lines among the Nazis.
In time, as movie roles became fewer, Danova did a great deal of television work. Two of his most memorable later screen roles were as Mafia Don Giovanni in Mean Streets (1973),directed by Martin Scorsese, and as corrupt mayor Carmine DePasto in National Lampoon's Animal House (1978).
