DJANGO wasn't the first so-called "spaghetti western" nor even the most popular. In fact, it mostly went unnoticed in the US, overshadowed by Clint Eastwood and Lee Van Cleef in Sergi0 Leone's THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY.
With about a hundred "unofficial" sequels and one official one made two decades later, DJANGO may, however, be the most influential western of them all. Factor in the fact that actor Terrence Hill began in spaghetti westerns based initially on the fact that he looked like DJANGO star Franco Nero. Hill would go on to a long, successful international career that involved mostly light-hearted westerns and adventures.
The reason that a replacement star was even needed for Nero was that he was flown off to Hollywood to be Sir Lancelot in the huge budget big-screen
adaptation of the musical, CAMELOT!
In CAMELOT, Franco Nero stole Vanessa Redgrave's heart from Richard Harris. Many years later, the two were wed in real life! Franco Nero revisited the Django character for the official sequel, DJANGO 2: IL GRANDE RITORNO in 1987.
The original story? Django is a dark, brooding gunfighter who travels from town to town dragging a coffin. Eventually we learn it carries a Gatling Gun. That's the important part.
Two of the seminal characters in modern pop sci-fi made their television debut in this date in '66. Captain Kirk and Mister Spock cast ever-bigger shadows after STAR TREK was canceled as the series grew to spawn books, toys, comics, cartoons, movies and a whole industry of dedicated pop culture. It all started on this date...in 1966.
In CAMELOT, Franco Nero stole Vanessa Redgrave's heart from Richard Harris. Many years later, the two were wed in real life! Franco Nero revisited the Django character for the official sequel, DJANGO 2: IL GRANDE RITORNO in 1987.
No stranger to pop culture-related covers, the weekly TIME Magazine surprisingly offered little of that sort of nonsense in '66. In fact, the only covers featuring anything that might be termed "Pop" at all are seen here. Interesting to note that every cover is art rather than photography. Lauren Bacall, Julia Child, Walter Cronkite, Ronald Reagan (just then being seen as serious regarding his political ambitions), Julie Andrews and Sir Rudolf Bing. And then there was the controversial cover that in a way made TIME itself part of the pop culture of 1966. The one at the very bottom.
