Aldo Sambrell

Aldo Sambrell — Biography

Born Alfredo Sánchez Brell in Madrid's Vallecas quarter on 23 February 1931, Aldo Sambrell went with his exiled family to Mexico while still young and played professional football there for Puebla F.C., nicknamed Madrileño Sánchez, and then for C.F. Monterrey; once back in Spain he turned out for Alcoyano and Rayo Vallecano before finally settling into acting work. Cast almost invariably as a heavy in the spaghetti westerns of that era, he took a memorable part in Sergio Leone's Dollars series, playing Cuchillo in For a Few Dollars More and turning up as well in A Fistful of Dollars and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Across roughly three and a half decades on screen he racked up over 150 credits, from continental co-productions like Tuareg and The Man Called Noon to a later part in the Turkish production Steam: The Turkish Bath. In 1964 he wed Cándida López Cano, with director Sergio Leone standing as best man, and the pair raised a son together. He suffered three strokes in June 2010 and succumbed to a cerebral infarction the following month, dying in Alicante at seventy-nine; his remains were scattered over Fort Bravo, the film-set town near Tabernas built for exactly these kinds of westerns.