Quick Facts
Biography
Gianni Ferrio (15 November 1924 – 21 October 2013) was an Italian composer, conductor and music arranger.
Life and career
Born in Vicenza, Ferrio studied at conservatories of Vicenza and Venice. He started working at the end of the fifties, and was pretty active as a composer of film scores, signing about 120 sound-tracks especially for spaghetti westerns and commedie sexy all'italiana films. His piece "One Silver Dollar", the main theme to Giorgio Ferroni's Blood for a Silver Dollar (1965), was later included in Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds.
He was also well known for his work in pop music, particularly for his collaboration with Mina, for whom he composed, among others, the hit song "Parole parole", and wrote arrangements and orchestrations for numerous of her songs and albums. The last collaboration with Mina was for her 2012 album 12 (American Song Book), for which Ferrio traditionally provided the string arrangements.
He was the official conductor for Sanremo Music Festival in 1959 and 1962 and for the Eurovision Song Contest 1965. He also took part, as conductor, in several important Italian TV-shows.
Ferrio was married to ballerina and film actress Alba Arnova.
Selected filmography
- Who Hesitates Is Lost (1960)
- Toto, Fabrizi and the Young People Today (1960)
- Gentlemen Are Born (1960)
- Hercules in the Valley of Woe (1961)
- The Two Colonels (1962)
- Obiettivo ragazze (1963)
- The Four Musketeers (1963)
- Heroes of the West (1964)
- Blood for a Silver Dollar (1965)
- The Sweet Sins of Sexy Susan (1967)
- Wanted (1967)
- The Dirty Outlaws (1967)
- Death Sentence (1968)
- Find a Place to Die (1968)
- Sexy Susan Sins Again (1968)
- Sundance and the Kid (1969)
- A Man for Emmanuelle (1969)
- A Bullet for Sandoval (1969)
- Reverend's Colt (1970)
- Rendezvous with Dishonour (1970)
- A Man Called Sledge (1970)
- Death Occurred Last Night (1970)
- The Bloodstained Butterfly (1971)
- Long Live Your Death (1971)
- The Scalawag Bunch (1971)
- Alta tensión (1972)
- Fasthand (1972)
- Death Walks at Midnight (1972)
- La Isla misteriosa y el capitán Nemo (1973)
- Tony Arzenta (1973)
- Puzzle (1974)
- Policewoman (1974)
- The Gamecock (1974)
- Classe mista (1976)
- Per amore di Poppea (1977)
- La compagna di banco (1977)
- The Schoolteacher Goes to Boys' High (1977)
- Blazing Flowers (1978)
- How to Lose a Wife and Find a Lover (1978)
- La liceale nella classe dei ripetenti (1978)
- How to Seduce Your Teacher (1979)
- The Nurse in the Military Madhouse (1979)
- La ripetente fa l'occhietto al preside (1980)
- I Don't Understand You Anymore (1980)
- I'm Getting a Yacht (1980)
- La settimana bianca (1980)
- L'onorevole con l'amante sotto il letto (1981)
- Delitto passionale (1994)
