Bud Spencer died five years ago. In Berlin, a new museum commemorates the Italian film star, who has long become a veritable cult figure in Germany.
“Mr. Pedersoli, do you like Bud Spencer?” — “No, I don’t like him. But I respect him for the money he has made, as he has achieved much more than Carlo Pedersoli,” the very Carlo Pedersoli himself said in an interview with the German Focus magazine in 2011 — jokingly, because he was actually referring to himself:
Carlo Pedersoli, a self-taught actor, Olympic swimmer, singer, and native of Naples, was best known in the industry as Bud Spencer. He was well-known throughout the world and undoubtedly made a fortune thanks to his appearances in more than a hundred western films.
Role of the good-natured strong-arm man
Back in 1967, Pedersoli had a role in his first so-called Spaghetti Western film, God Forgives… I don’t!
He required an English alias since, at the time, his given name was thought to be too long for the international cinema industry. The actor made up a moniker based on Spencer Tracy, his favorite actor, and Budweiser, his preferred brew. Bud Spencer was afterwards born.
Bud Spencer grumbled and beat his way through countless films over the next few decades, mostly alongside his Venetian compatriot Mario Girotti, aka Terence Hill.
Box office hits and later TV successes include Western parodies like They Call Me Trinity (1970), Trinity Is Still My Name (1971) and All the Way, Boys (1972).
Worshiped in East and West Germany
With an impressive number of such films, the Spencer-Hill duo played their way deep into the cultural memory of two postwar generations in Germany, both in West and East Germany.
A recent argument about a two-kilometer-long tunnel that was supposed to be dubbed the Bud Spencer Tunnel and be built in the southern German city of Schwäbisch-Gmünd serves as an example of the magnitude of the cult around the two personalities. In the end, the city council altered its mind and gave the Bud Spencer Bad to a nearby open-air swimming pool.
In 1998, authorities in the city of Lommatsch in the eastern German state of Saxony also renamed a sports facility the Terence Hill Outdoor Pool; Hill had actually lived in the town for a while in the 1940s. Along with the first chancellor of the German Empire, Otto von Bismarck, Terence Hill is even an honorary citizen of the town.
In the city of Worms, a bridge that was supposed to be named after Terence Hill was changed at the last minute by the mayor. But maps and Google Maps both show the Terence Hill Bridge crossing the Rhine River.
Apart from tunnels, pools and bridges, a small museum in Berlin honoring Bud Spencer will now open its doors on June 27 in Berlin, marking the fifth anniversary of the actor’s death.
The exhibition shown through June 30, 2022 is titled “Flatfoot in Berlin – the big Bud Spencer exhibition” and will feature 400 exhibits showcasing the man beyond the actor — Carlos Pedersoli, the world-class swimmer, lawyer, airline owner, composer, inventor — and global icon.