Giancarlo Giannini was born August 1, 1942, in La Spezia, Italy. He is an Oscar-nominated Italian actor, director and multilingual dubber who made an international reputation for his leading roles in Italian films as well as for his mastery of a variety of languages and dialects. He made his big-screen debut in Libido (1965), a Freudian psychological thriller. Since 1966 he has been in a successful collaboration with the legendary Italian director Lina Wertmüller, who made several award-winning films with Giannini as a male lead.