One of the geek highlights of my career occurred when I was in a US mini series called ‘Uprising’. The film is about the Jewish Uprising in the Warsaw ghetto so it was all 1930’s/40’s period. My character had a heroes death when he gets burned to death, taking a Nazi soldier with him to a fiery end. My first day on location in Bratislava was a busy one, first up was my costume fitting after which I was sent to special effects to talk about my make-up for the death sequence. I was told to go to the room marked ‘Gianetto De Rossi’. I couldn’t believe it, I knew that aside from being Bertolucci’s special effect maestro, Gianetto was the genius who created the Zombies in Lucio Fulci’s infamous 1979 film ‘Zombie Flesheaters’. As well as becoming probably the most notorious video nasty of the 80’s, this movie pretty much set the tone for the appearance of movie Zombie’s ever since. It’s effects are incredible and include the remarkable ‘eye sequence’ that shocked and amazed an entire generation of British teenage boys.
Gianetto is a true master and having him do my make-up for 3 months was an honour. Knowing what a genre fan I was, he made time one afternoon to sit and watch the Zombie eye gauging together whilst his booming laugh bellowed out through the make-up truck. An experience I will never forget.
Here is my precious DVD cover signed by the maestro himself. Bravo.
(click on the picture to watch the infamous eye-sequence. Be warned, it’s gruesome).
