Frank Kramer on his beginnings.

Gianfranco Parolini: I'm a different person on set. The set is my whole life.

Let's go back to the start. I lived in a house with a leaky roof in the centre of Rome, near the Trevi Fountain. I used to write thrillers back then. I wrote a hundred of those books that are a hundred pages long. I didn't have any heating and in winter it was freezing, so I used to put newspapers in these big boxes to keep my feet warm while I wrote. They were published by someone called Cantarella.
I started working with Giuseppe D'Amato, an important producer with an office on Via Sistina. I was a director's assistant. I worked on YVONNE OF THE NIGHT, TOMORROW IS TOO LATE and THE FLOWERS OF ST.FRANCIS with Rossellini. And lots of others. I was an assistant on CLEOPATRA and I was disgusted by the way money was wasted. I remember Elizabeth Taylor with pleasure: those violet eyes that changed colour, even though she wasn't anything that special physically. But above all, I was crazy about Richard Burton as an actor. He had a lot of character, he bowled me over. He was splendid!