Bud Spencer (born Carlo Pedersoli; 31 October 1929 – 27 June 2016) was an Italian actor, filmmaker and professional swimmer. He is known for action-comedy roles with his long-time film partner Terence Hill. A successful swimmer in his youth, he obtained a degree in law and registered several patents. Spencer also became a certified commercial airline and helicopter pilot, and supported and funded many children's charities, including the Spencer Scholarship Fund. 
Spencer and Hill appeared in, produced and directed over 20 films together. 
Early life
Son of Alessandro Pedersoli and Rosa Facchetti, Carlo Pedersoli was born on 31 October 1929 in Santa Lucia, a historical rione in Naples, and in the same building as the writer Luciano De Crescenzo. Pedersoli started school in 1935, along with De Crescenzo. He played several sports and showed an aptitude for swimming, winning prizes. In 1940, due to his father's work, he moved to Rome, where he attended high school and joined a swimming club. He finished school before his seventeenth birthday with the highest marks and enrolled at the Sapienza University of Rome, where he studied chemistry. In January 1947, the family moved to South America  and Pedersoli discontinued his studies. From 1947 to 1949, he worked in the Italian consulate in Recife, Brazil, where he learned fluent Portuguese. 
Swimming and water polo career
Pedersoli was back to Italy in 1949 to play water polo in Rome for Società Sportiva Lazio Nuoto and won the Italian swimming championships in freestyle and mixed relay teams. As a professional swimmer in his youth, Spencer was the first Italian to swim the 100 m freestyle in less than one minute. He achieved this on 19 September 1950 in Salsomaggiore, when he swam the 100 m in 59.5 s. In 1949 he made his international debut and a year later he was called up for the European championships in Vienna where he swam in two finals, fifth in the 100 m and fourth in the relay 4 × 200 m. 
In the 1951 Mediterranean Games in Alexandria (Egypt), he won a silver medal in the same 100 m freestyle event.  Pedersoli participated in the 1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki, Finland, reaching the semi-finals in the 100 m freestyle (58.8 s heats, 58.9 s semi final). Four years later, in Melbourne, he also entered the semi-finals in the same category (58.5 s heat, 59.0 s semi final). 
In the summer of 1960 he participated in the Olympic Games in Rome. 
As a water polo player, he won the Italian Championship in 1954 with S.S. Lazio and the gold medal at 1955 Mediterranean Games in Barcelona with the Italian national team. His swimming career ended abruptly in 1957. 
On 17 January 2005, he was awarded the Caimano d'oro (Gold Caiman) by the Italian Swimming Federation. On 24 January 2007, he received swimming and water polo coach diplomas from the Italian Swimming Federation's president Paolo Barelli. 
Acting career
Pedersoli massive physique was noted by cinematography. 
Pedersoli's first film role was in Quel fantasma di mio marito, an Italian comedy shot in 1949 and released in 1950. 
In 1951 he played a member of the Praetorian Guard in Quo Vadis, a famous epic film shot in Italy made by MGM and directed by Mervyn LeRoy. Later he played occasionally in minor pieces, the best known of which was Mario Monicelli's movie A Hero of Our Times, with Alberto Sordi. In 1954 he played, with Raf Vallone, in the war film Human Torpedoes. 
During the 1950s and part of the 1960s, Spencer appeared in some Italian films but "his career was strictly minor league until the late 1960s." 
In 1960, after the Summer Olympic games, Pedersoli married Maria Amato, daughter of the famous Italian film producer Giuseppe Amato (La dolce vita), but initially he was not interested in cinema; nevertheless he signed a contract with RCA Records to write lyrics for famous Italian singers, such as Ornella Vanoni and Nico Fidenco and some soundtracks. In the following years, his son Giuseppe was born (1961), followed by Christiana (1962), his contract with RCA expired and his father-in-law died (1964). This situation made Pedersoli to change his life, becoming a producer of documentaries for the national public broadcasting company RAI.
 
In 1967 film director Giuseppe Colizzi offered him a role in God Forgives... I Don't!, but initially he refused, asking more money to play. The conversation with the film director had not gone particularly well then, because Pedersoli had not yet grown the beard and was poor at horseriding. Despite that, the director could not find anyone else with his physical structure, so after some time he recalled the guy, offering him the role with the economic conditions that Pedersoli had requested. On the set, he met another unknown young actor, Mario Girotti (Terence Hill). The film director asked the two actors to change their names, deeming them to be too Italian-sounding for a Western movie: Pedersoli chose Bud Spencer to pay homage to Spencer Tracy as well as his favorite beer, Budweiser.
Spencer had met his future film partner, Terence Hill, on the set of Hannibal in 1959. They went on to become a film duo. While Hill's characters were agile and youthful, Spencer always played the "phlegmatic, grumpy strong-arm man with a blessed, naive child's laughter and a golden heart". Overall, Hill and Spencer worked together on over 20 films, including (named using their most common U.S. titles): 
Hannibal (1959), as Carlo Pedersoli together with Mario Girotti
God Forgives... I Don't! (1967), first time as Bud Spencer together with Terence Hill
Ace High (1968)
Boot Hill (1969)
They Call Me Trinity (1970)
Blackie the Pirate (1971)
Trinity Is Still My Name (1971)
All the Way, Boys (1972)
Watch Out, We're Mad (1974)
Two Missionaries (1975)
Crime Busters (1976)
Odds and Evens (1978)
I'm For the Hippopotamus (1979)
Who Finds a Friend Finds a Treasure (1981)
Go For It! (1983)
Double Trouble (1984)
Miami Supercops (1985)
Troublemakers (1994)
Films with Spencer alone include:
 The Five Man Army (1969)
The Fifth Day of Peace (1969)
It Can Be Done Amigo (1972)
Flatfoot (1973)
They Call Him Bulldozer (1978)
The Sheriff and the Satellite Kid (1979)
Everything Happens to Me (1980)
Banana Joe (1982)
Bomber (1982)
Superfantagenio (1986)
Many of these have alternative titles, depending upon the country and distributor. Some have longer Italian versions that were edited for release abroad. These films gathered popularity for both actors, especially in Europe. In an interview, Spencer said: "Terence is like a brother to me, and like brothers we don't always agree, and he can be a pain in the neck sometimes." [laughs] "... our relationship I suppose is reflected in our movies, but he can always count on me as I can on him. We always enjoyed working together, probably why we made so many films together." 
The main dubber of Bud Spencer in Italy is Glauco Onorato who, with his characteristic voice, successfully enriched the character of Bud Spencer. Sergio Fiorentini dubbed Spencer in Troublemakers, To the Limit (1997) and the series of Detective Extralarge, (1991–93) while in the movie Everything Happens to Me the dubber is Ferruccio Amendola. 
Spencer wrote the complete or partial screenplay for some of his movies. His feature film career slowed down after 1983, shifting more toward television. In the 1990s, he acted in the Television action-drama Extralarge. His autobiography was published by Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf in 2011. In addition, Spencer also published a recipe book including his favorite dishes.
 
Political career
In 2005, he entered politics, unsuccessfully standing as regional counselor in Lazio for the Forza Italia party. Spencer stated: "In my life, I've done everything. There are only three things I haven't been – a ballet dancer, a jockey and a politician. Given that the first two jobs are out of the question, I'll throw myself into politics." The opposition criticised him for engaging in "politica spettacolo" ("showbiz politics").
 
Personal life
Spencer married Maria Amato in 1960, with whom he had three children: Giuseppe (1961), Christine (1962) and Diamante (1972). After appearing in Più forte, ragazzi!, Spencer became a jet airplane and helicopter pilot. He established Mistral Air in 1984, an air-mail company that also transports pilgrims, but later sold it to Poste Italiane.
Death
Spencer died aged 86 on 27 June 2016 in Rome. As son Giuseppe Pedersoli stated, his father "died without pain in presence of his family and his last word was 'grazie'". He was survived by his wife, three children, five grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.
 

Source: Wikipedia.org