John Steiner

John Steiner

Birth : 1941-01-07, Chester, Cheshire, England, UK

History

John Steiner (born 7 January 1941 in Chester) is an English actor. Tall, thin and gaunt, Steiner attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts and worked for a few years at the BBC. Steiner featured in a lead role in a television production of Design for Living by Noel Coward. Later he found further work primarily in films. In the late 1960s, Steiner was hired to play a part in the spaghetti western Tepepa. He found himself in demand in Italy and relocated there, specializing in playing villains in a great number of Italian B-movies and exploitation films. John Steiner has appeared in various genres of movies, including horror films and police actioners. He also became a favorite of famed Italian filmmaker Tinto Brass featuring in Salon Kitty alongside Ingrid Thulin and Helmut Berger. Steiner was in very steady demand until the late 1980s. As the Italian film industry dwindled, Steiner retired from acting in 1991 and relocated to California, where he became a real estate agent. In the late 1990s a special magazine was started by Cranston McMillan's Also Press. Titled, John Steiner the zine was dedicated to Steiner's film, TV and stage work, featured reviews and helping fans trace prints of his more obscure Italian work, the publication triggered new interest in the happily retired star. Selling mainly in mainland Europe and the USA the zine ran until successfully 2005. A special large format issue ended the run. McMillan remains the best authority on John Steiner and has promised that his long awaited definitve work on the actors career will be with publishers soon. Steiner has recently contributed to DVD extras on some of his films and given interviews about his Italian work. Description above from the Wikipedia article John Steiner, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Profile

John Steiner

Movies

The Outsider - Il Cinema Di Antonio Margheriti
Himself
Documentary on the life and films of Antonio Margheriti.
Eurocrime! The Italian Cop and Gangster Films That Ruled the '70s
Self
A documentary concerning the violent Italian 'poliziotteschi' cinematic movement of the 1970s which, at first glance, seem to be rip-offs of American crime films like DIRTY HARRY or THE GODFATHER, but which really address Italian issues like the Sicilian Mafia and red terrorism. Perhaps even more interesting than the films themselves were the rushed methods of production (stars performing their own stunts, stealing shots, no live sound) and the bleed-over between real-life crime and movie crime.
Paura: Lucio Fulci Remembered - Volume 1
Self
This documentary examines the life and legacy of controversial Italian filmmaker Lucio Fulci through interviews with his colleagues, each of whom answers the question, "What is your fondest memory of Lucio Fulci?". The responses are as varied as the people who knew the late writer-director, providing a nuanced look at the man behind such gory grindhouse classics as City of the Living Dead and The House by the Cemetery.
My Roman Holiday With John Steiner
Self
Interview with John Stiener about his career and views and perspectives on Caligula and some of his other movies.
Paprika
Principe Ascanio Del Bardo
A young country girl comes to town and works in a brothel in order to help her fiance get the money to start his own business. "Paprika" is the name given to her by the madam.
Sinbad of the Seven Seas
Jaffar
Sinbad returns from the sea to find his country subjected to the will of two unscrupulous sorcerers.
Gioco al massacro
Film makers Clem Da Silva (Tomas Milian) and Theo Steiner (Elliott Gould) are childhood friends, although now estranged. While both are gifted and equally passionate about cinema, their destinies couldn’t have been any different – multiple Oscar winner Theo is successful and admired around the world, whereas few have ever heard of Clem, because he often gets to work only for television. Clem has accused Theo of plagiarising his ideas that, to add insult to injury, went on to win awards.
Appuntamento a Liverpool
British Police Inspector
Caterina's father died before her eyes in the Heysel Stadium disaster. Years later, she's summoned by British police to look at some possible suspects. She recognizes her father's murderer, a Scouser cab driver, but doesn't say anything, choosing to track him down and exact her revenge by herself.
The Commander
Duclaud
Lewis Collins is back to leading mercenaries on the move in Southeast Asia. This time the cast is unusually good including Lee Van Cleef, Brett Halsey (Cop Game), Romano Puppo (Robowar), Mike Monty (Raiders of Atlantis), Bobby Rhodes (The Great Alligator), etc. Anyway, Van Cleef has Collins go on some random mission to locate a disc with all sorts of valuable crazy intelligence data on it. It just happens that Donald Pleasence, a random government official, hires another mercenary-for-hire Manfred Lehman to tag along and make sure the data ends up in the right hands. Van Cleef isn't taking any chances, and since he is crooked and murders Collins's other bosses quickly, he places Romano Puppo in the group as well to make sure the operation runs smoothly. Collins may not be too expressive but at least he seems to figure out quickly who's out to get him, so the mission continues with lots of double-crosses, twists and turns, and of course lots of explosions!
The Night of the Sharks
Rosentski
David must fight for his life against the gangsters who killed his brother for a CD filled with proof of their illegal activities. When David gets possession of the CD they go down to Mexico where David lives as a shark hunter. Who will get David first, the gangsters or the shark?
Julia and Julia
Alex
Giulia, an American woman living in Italy, becomes depressed and traumatized after her husband Paolo is killed in a car accident on their wedding day. Six years later, Giulia inexplicably finds herself sliding in time between two different worlds where in one she is still struggling with her grief over Paolo's death, and in the other world she is married to Paolo who's alive and well with their five year old son, where Giulia is having an affair with a British gentleman named Daniel, in which the frequent supernatural sliding between these two worlds threaten to drive Giulia crazy when she begins having difficulty in telling them apart and learning which world she is currently living in. (First movie filmed with Sony HDVS camera, in High Definition.)
Striker
Kariasin
John Slade is hired to rescue a journalist named Frank Morris from a Sandinista prison in Nicaragua. He teams with Marta, a local woman, to carry out this mission, but then he's captured, tortured, and forced to deal with the fact that he's been betrayed.
Lone Runner
Skorm
The Summerking's daughter has been kidnapped, and the legendary hero of the desert comes to her rescue as he did when she was young. The Lone Runner proves to be an unstoppable hero with limitless fighting abilities. He battles those who would harm innocents, and does what ever else he can for them.
Summer Night with Greek Profile, Almond Eyes and Scent of Basil
Frederick, Fulvia's lover
Mariangela Melato stars as Fulvia Bolk, a self-made tycoon interested in ecological preservation. She is fed up with the terrorists who are poaching Italy’s natural beauty, and as part of a crazy retaliation scheme she hires a former CIA agent to abduct the number-one violator, Giuseppe “Beppe” Catania and hold him for ransom.
Body Count
Dr. Olsen
A bodybuilder, a junk-food addict and a wild blonde nymph and their friends are stalked by a terrifying figure. An horrific tale of murder as a fun-loving group of college students explore the Colorado wilderness.
Cobra Mission
James Walcott
Ten years after the end of the war in Vietnam, four ex-Marines decide to return to S.E. Asia to investigate reports of American POWs still being held there. These four include Roger, whose daughter's just been married, the unemployed James, Mark, who's quit his job at an Arizona roadside tavern, and Richard, recently a patient at a mental hospital. In the jungles of S.E. Asia they discover American POWs but also find out about a U.S. Government plot to keep this knowledge a secret.
Troppo forte
Mike Adams
Oscar dreams of becoming an actor or a stuntman. To contact a manufacturer he stages an accident and consequently injures a young actress, then tries to limit the damage by taking the girl to his home.
Commando Leopard
Smithy
A cruel dictator rules a Latin American state. Corruption, brutality and exploitation are present every day. A few people begin to organise resistance. Under the leader "El Leopardo" a small group of guerillas fights against the violent government.
The Berlin Affair
Oskar Engelhart
In 1938 Berlin, Gudrun Landgrebe, wife of Nazi functionary Kevin McNally, begins taking art lessons. She makes the acquaintance of another student, Japanese ambassador's daughter Mio Takaki. Soon afterwards, the two women begin a passionate lesbian affair. This leads to a chain reaction of disaster and tragedy, culminating with the inevitable intervention of the Gestapo. Despite the film's galloping sexual passions, The Berlin Affair is an exercise in aloofness, keeping the characters at arm's length-surprising, considering that the director was Liliana Cavani, auteur of the erotic classic The Night Porter (1974). The film was based on The Buddhist Cross, a novel by Junichiro Tanizaki.
Cut and Run
Vlado
A reporter and her cameraman connect a surviving Jonestown leader and a TV exec's missing son to a drug war where jungle installations are being massacred by an army of natives and a skilled white assassin.
I due carabinieri
Crazy man on the train
Two deadbeat friends barely pass the entrance exam for the Carabinieri, the national gendarmerie of Italy, but love for the same woman gets in the way.
The Ark of the Sun God
Lord Dean
A safecracker takes a job where he must go to Istanbul and steal a scepter that once belonged to the god Gilgamesh but is now in the temple of a secret cult.
Mystère
Ivanov
Assassins are after a prostitute who has come into possession of a cigarette lighter that, unbeknownst to her, contains the negatives that show a politician's assassination. A delightfully playful giallo starring the beautiful Carole Bouquet as Mystère, a high class call girl who becomes the target for a couple of assassins.
Yor, the Hunter from the Future
Overlord
In prehistoric times, the muscular Yor saves his cave-babe from a dinosaur just before they get zapped into the future to battle bad guys in the familiar desolate wasteland.
Tenebre
Christiano Berti
A razor-wielding serial killer is on the loose, murdering those around Peter Neal, an American mystery author in Italy to promote his newest novel.
The Hunters of the Golden Cobra
Captain David Franks
An American soldier and a British intelligence agent try to track down an ancient relic called the Golden Cobra, rumored to have supernatural powers. An early Raiders rip-off directed Antonio Margheriti.
Car Crash
Kirby
When successful racer Nick, with friend and business manager Paul are threatened off the racing circuit they call in a favor from a stock car mechanic who delivers more than they bargained for as he gives them the ultimate power car which he has spent years perfecting.
The Salamander
Captain Roditi
An Italian policeman investigates a series of murders involving people in prominent positions. Left behind at each murder scene is a drawing of a salamander. The policeman begins to suspect these murders are linked to a plot to seize control of the government.
The Last Hunter
Major William Cash
During the Vietnam war, an American soldier gets trapped beind enemy lines. A squad of his buddies sets out to rescue him.
Action
The Manager
Bruno is an idealistic hero who questions the meaning of life in this confusing and sometimes hallucinatory erotic drama. After a night in jail, he is gang-raped by punk rockers in a garbage dump. He later saves an old man who believes he is Garibaldi and a woman he believes is Ophelia. Bruno watches helplessly as she later jumps from a window.
Caligola
Longinus
The perversion behind imperial Rome, the epic story of Rome's mad Emporer. All the details of his cruel, bizarre reign are revealed right here: His unholy sexual passion for his sister, his marriage to Rome's most infamous prostitute, his fiendishly inventive means of disposing those who would oppose him, and more.
The Little Archimedes
Alfred
The action takes place in Florence in the 1930s. Alfred, an Englishman who moved to that city in order to write a book on Giotto, meets a boy who is fond of music and mathematics, with whom he becomes close friends. Alfred goes to Switzerland, but one day he receives an anguished letter from the boy and rushes back to Florence where he learns some terrible news.
Design for Living
Leo
Design for Living presents a trio of neurotic but intensely artistic characters: Gilda, Otto and Leo. Set in Paris, Otto and Leo both fall in love with Gilda. She cannot make up her mind which man she loves, so the three decide to live together in a platonic friendship. Among Coward's trademark sparkling wit, the play explores deeper themes including infidelity, the pressures of fame on an unstable mind, and morality (or immorality) of a menage a trois.
Question of Love
Tom Hastings
Architect Dumas dies from a bullet of his own gun in front of his house. The police suspect his young Swedish wife Catherine and her English lover Tom Hastings. After numerous interrogations, in which they entangle themselves in contradictions, they try to flee, but are soon both caught and brought to trial, he in England, she in France. Only when Catherine keeps on proclaiming her innocence, superintendent Corbier finally considers believing her.
Il prigioniero
Italian TV movie. Based upon a novel by Anton Chekhov.
Goodbye & Amen
Donald Grayson
As John Dhannay, a CIA agent stationed in Rome, plans the overthrow of an African government, he discovers one of his men has been in contact with agents from the other side. Before he can confront the traitor, the man seemingly goes crazy, sniping several people before taking an adulterous couple hostage in a hotel room.
L'avvocato della mala
Killer
Mario Gastaldi, a lawyer with no clients and no money, agrees to be a negotiator in a deal on stolen paintings, between the boss Peseti and the engineer Farnese, who plots kidnappings unsuspectedly. After he cashed from Farnese three hundred millions of lire to deliver to Peseti, Mario lets money be robbed by four pickpockets, which he is naturally in cahoots with and which he will share out it with. Money cannot be used since it comes from a kidnapping and it was marked. The lawyer will be able to make the boss get arrested.
The Criminals Attack. The Police Respond
Rudy
Returning from Switzerland to Rome, the boss prof. Salviati, called 'The Prince', finds his business compromised by Rudy, a small local bandit full of presumption, audacity and men ready to kill. Commissioner Baldi a young and brave employee, will fight against them with the help of an ex-employee Rampelli.
A Man Called Blade
Valler
Maurizio Merli stars as a hatchet-wielding bounty hunter with a dark past and an even more desperate future. But when he disrupts the balance of power in a corrupt mining town, he unleashes a firestorm of brutality, betrayal and cold-blooded murder. Now, one man stalks a savage land where justice walks a razor and no bullets slice deeper than vengeance. He is A MAN CALLED BLADE.
Shock
Bruno Baldini
A couple is terrorized in their new house haunted by the vengeful ghost of the woman's former husband who possesses her young son.
Von Buttiglione Sturmtruppenführer
Schwein
La Gabbia
Il professore
Based on the infamous Stanford prison experiment. In 1977, Italian director Carlo Tuzii adapted the experiment to an Italian environment. Italian students made a film based on it, La Gabbia (The Cage).
Antonio Gramsci: The Days of Prison
Antonio Gramsci, sentenced to twenty years in prison by the fascist tribunals, relives the stages of his political career and private life.
Deported Women of the SS Special Section
Herr Erner
Young women in Nazi-occupied countries are packed onto a train and shipped off to a prison camp, where the sadistic commandant uses them as rewards for his lesbian guards and perverted and deviate troops.
Mark Strikes Again
Paul Henkel
A murderous drug dealer breaks his partner out of police custody. An undercover cop is assigned to track down the two killers and bring them in.
The Hornet's Nest
Fisher
A compulsive gambler must steal a suitcase full of money, which is also coveted by Melba, a cabaret singer. A getaway ensues.
Violent Milan
Fausto
A gang of thieves decides to hit the headquarters of Aspex. The police intervened and only two of the robbers managed to escape with the loot, while the other two are forced to take hostages to escape. The police started investigations but also the gang leader, the Cat, will be hunting the first two escaped with the loot to get money, and revenge for their escape.
Salon Kitty
Biondo
Kitty runs a brothel in Nazi Germany where the soldiers come to "relax". Recording devices have been installed in each room by a power hungry army official who plans to use the information to blackmail Hitler and gain power himself. A girl named Margherita discovers the little ploy and with Kitty's help plans to take on the dangerous task of exposing the conspiracy.
I Don't Want to Be Born
Tommy Morris
A woman gives birth to a baby, but this is no ordinary little tyke. The child is seemingly possessed by the spirit of a freak dwarf who the mother once spurned. Cue a spate of strange deaths, the one common factor being the presence of a baby in pram at the scene...
Plot of Fear
Hoffmann
Plot of Fear tells the story of a decadent weekend party full of orgies and drugs on the outskirts of Milan. After two deaths occur Inspector Lomenzo interrogates one of the guests, a fashion model who becomes his informant, as well as his lover. Clery reveals that after a “wildlife orgy”one of the hosts tried to jokingly feed one of the prostitutes to a tiger but she got so frightened that she died of heart attack. In his attempt to find a connection between the victims, he investigates a cutting-edge security and surveillance firm whose director has secrets of his own to hide.
The Demonic Womanizer Costante Nicosia, or: Dracula in Brianza
Count Dragulescu
A boorish, snobish toothpaste factory owner, Constantino Nicosia, gives his wife and everyone a hard time having let success and wealth go to his head. But after the superticous Nicosia has an encounter with an elderly gypsy aunt, and a business trip to Romania results in another encounter with a suave vampire, named Count Dragalescu, Nicosia returns with blood-sucking like qualities which makes him re-examine his life and existence.
Violent City
Franco Spadoni 'Chiodo'
A detective sick and tired of the rampant crime and violence in his city, and constantly at odds with his superiors, is finally kicked out of the department for a "questionable" shooting of a vicious criminal. However, he is soon approached by a representative for a group of citizens who themselves are fed up with what they see as criminals going unpunished, and they make him an offer he may very well not refuse.
Waves of Lust
Giorgio
A young couple become embroiled with the personal problems of another couple on a yacht moored off Sicily during a turbulent weekend of fun, games, sex games, betrayal, spouse abuse, and murder.
The Last Day of School Before Christmas
Directed by Gian Vittorio Baldi
Challenge to White Fang
Beauty Smith / Charles Forth
Sequel to Lucio Fulci's first 'White Fang' has the wolf-dog once again trying to stop the villainous Beauty Smith from claiming a recently discovered gold mine in 1899 Yukon, Canada.
Occupations
Terrini
In an attempt to win better conditions for the workers in 1920s Turin, Gramsci leads a takeover of the factories by the workers. He is offered assistance by Kabak (who has just arrived from Moscow) but Gramsci soon realizes Kabak is not motivated by ideology, as he has other motives.
Morel's Invention
Morel
A castaway arrives on an island. He thinks it's uninhabited, but he sees a palace with also a hidden room. Soon he sees some people walking, dressed with old-fashioned clothes. He is afraid because people don't see him, like a ghost.
White Fang
Charles 'Beauty' Smith
The wolf dog, White Fang, aids a reporter, a fur trapper, a nun, a young Eskimo boy and his father of ridding a gold mining town of a sleazy crime lord in 1896 Yukon, Canada.
Massacre in Rome
SS-Standartenführer Eugen Dollmann
In the Nazi occupied city of Rome, an assault on an SS brigade draws retaliation from the military governship. "Massacre in Rome" is the true story of how this partisan attack led to the mass execution of Italian nationals under the orders of SS-Lieutenant Colonel Kappler.
Holidays
Scagnetti
Rossini, history teacher and son of another professor, for his liberal ideas refuses to sign the oath of allegiance to the the fascist regime that Mussolini imposed on the professors university. After a period of imprisonment he is so assigned to confinement on an island. Here the young intellectual finds himself in contact with the composite humanity that populated the places of confinement: militiamen, agents, common and political coercion, villagers. The figure of the director of the colony, the commissioner Rizzuto, stands out among all, who was a pupil of his father, and for whom he continues to have feelings of esteem and devotion.
The Police Serve the Citizens?
Lambro
In Genoa, the Commissioner Sironi has identified the leader of the ferocious racket that controls the port activities. But the law restrains his action.
Slap the Monster on Page One
Ingegner Montelli - Publisher of 'Il Giornale'
1972, Milan. Just a few days before the general elections, a young girl from an esteemed family is raped and murdered. Bizanti, editor-in-chief of a conservative newspaper, tries to derail the official police investigation in order to help the right-wing candidates supported by his boss to win the elections.
The Case Is Closed, Forget It
Piro
Because of a violation of traffic regulations an architect is put in prison. There he witnesses the grim reality of life behind bars: corrupt staff, corrupt inmates, an inhuman judicial system and the power of the Mafia.
Bali
Glenn
The wife of a European photographer on assignment in exotic Bali falls for an enigmatic ex patriot under the spell of a mystical death cult...
The Golden Ass
Aristomene
In ancient Mauretania, the young Roman Lucius Apuleius and his friend Aristomene run into a series of misadventures.
Alba pagana
Roderick Rodney Stanton
In a changing world a young Italian enrols at Oxford and finds i is him they are out to change.
A Girl Called Jules
Luciano
After his Western triumphs, Valerii stepped out of the shadow of Sergio Leone with this distinctly Bergmanesque sexual melodrama.Dionisio is perfect in the title role and this remains her best film, Valerii turns up along the way too. Just when the film hits a period of auto pilot John Steiner turns up in the final reel for a climax that is quite unforgettable. A bit difficult to trace but well worth the effort.
The Ancines Woods
Robert
Benito Freire, a pedlar in a small village in northern Spain suffers from epileptic seizures and rumours start to spread that he may be a werewolf and responsible for a series of killings. The local Abbot is called upon to form a team to investigate, in an effort to halt the harrowing murders.
12 + 1
Stanley
Mario, a young philanderer, receives 13 antique chairs in a bad state by inheritance and decides to sell off them to get some money. Afterwards he gets to know that one of them contains documents worth a lot of money. So he begins an adventurous trip to regain possession of the chair. On the way he meets many strange people who would like to help or to swindle him.
Tepepa
Doctor Henry Price
The Mexican guerilla leader Tepepa and his gang fight against the chief of police, Cascorro.
Work Is a 4-Letter Word
Anthony
Dreamlike satire about a young man who resists getting a job at the lone employing conglomerate in his dreary industrial town, but changes his mind when he discovers the plant's boiler room has the perfect climate to assist him with his pet horticultural (fungal) project.
Bedazzled
TV Announcer (uncredited)
Stanley is infatuated with Margaret, the statuesque waitress who works with him. He meets George Spiggott AKA the devil and sells his soul for 7 wishes, which Stanley uses to try and make Margaret his own first as an intellectual, then as a rock star, then as a wealthy industrialist. As each fails, he becomes more aware of how empty his life had been and how much more he has to live for.
Marat/Sade
Monsieur Dupere
In Charenton Asylum, the Marquis de Sade directs a play about Jean Paul Marat's death, using the patients as actors. Based on 'The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade', a 1963 play by Peter Weiss.
Caligula MMXX
Longino
A completely new version of the most infamous movie in film history. The perversion behind imperial Rome, the epic story of Rome's mad Emporer Caligula. All the details of his cruel, bizarre reign are revealed right here: His unholy sexual passion for his sister, his marriage to Rome's most infamous prostitute, his fiendishly inventive means of disposing those who would oppose him, and more.