Background and career
Bud Spencer (born Carlo Pedersoli; 31 October 1929 – 27 June 2016) was an Italian actor, professional swimmer and water polo player. He was known for action-comedy and spaghetti Western roles with his long-time film partner and friend Terence Hill. Spencer and Hill appeared in 18 films together. In his youth, Bud Spencer was a successful athlete and swimmer for Gruppo Sportivo Fiamme Oro and for Società Sportiva Lazio Nuoto. He represented Italy twice at the Summer Olympics. He obtained a law degree 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.
Son of Alessandro Pedersoli and Rosa Facchetti, respectively from Darfo Boario Terme and Chiari (both in the province of Brescia, Lombardy), Carlo Pedersoli was born on 31 October 1929 in Santa Lucia, a historical rione in Naples, in the same building as the writer Luciano De Crescenzo. He played several sports and showed an aptitude for swimming, winning prizes. De Crescenzo was a classmate of his. 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 Sapienza University of Rome, where he studied chemistry. In 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 to speak fluent Portuguese.
Pedersoli returned to Italy in 1949, and played 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 when, on 19 September 1950, he swam the distance in 59.5 s in Salsomaggiore. 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, finishing 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, at the 1956 Summer Olympics in Melbourne, Australia, he again reached the semi-finals in the same category (58.5 s heat, 59.0 s semi final). 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.
Pedersoli's first film role was in Quel fantasma di mio marito, an Italian comedy short released in 1950. In 1951, he played a member of the Praetorian Guard in Quo Vadis, an epic film shot in Italy made by MGM and directed by Mervyn LeRoy. During the 1950s and early 1960s, Spencer appeared playing minor parts in Italian including Mario Monicelli's movie A Hero of Our Times, with Alberto Sordi and the 1954 war film Human Torpedoes with Raf Vallone. In 1960, after the Summer Olympic games, Pedersoli married Maria Amato, daughter of Italian film producer Giuseppe Amato. He signed a contract with RCA Records to write lyrics for singers such as Ornella Vanoni and Nico Fidenco and soundtracks. In the following years, his son Giuseppe was born (1961), followed by Cristiana (1962), his contract with RCA expired and his father-in-law died (1964). Pedersoli became 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!. On the set, Pedersoli met Mario Girotti (Terence Hill). (Although Pedersoli appeared in the same movie as Girotti in Hannibal in 1959, they did not meet during filming). 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, with Bud inspired by Budweiser beer and Spencer by the actor Spencer Tracy. 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 18 films, including (using their most common U.S. titles) the spaghetti Westerns They Call Me Trinity (1970) and its sequel, Trinity Is Still My Name (1971). Their last teaming, Troublemakers (1994), was also in this genre.
Many of these have alternative titles, depending on the country and distributor. Some have longer Italian versions that were edited for their release abroad. These films gathered popularity for both actors, especially throughout much of Europe and parts of Asia and South America. Because of the duo's huge popularity, many producers wanted to exploit their likeness with visually similar duos. Most notable were Paul L. Smith (adopted name Adam Eden in later years, sometimes credited Anam Eden) and Michael Coby (real name Antonio Cantafora) with at least 6 movies in Bud & Terence-fashion from 1973 to 1977, and István Bujtor with 6 movies in Piedone-fashion from 1981 to 2008. In the Italian versions of his films, Spencer was generally dubbed by actor Glauco Onorato due to his thick Naples accent, although he was voiced by Sergio Fiorentini in Troublemakers, To the Limit (1997) and the Extralarge series (1991–93). For English dubs, Spencer was usually voiced by Robert Sommer, Edward Mannix or Richard McNamara, although he occasionally provided his own voice.
Sources
Net-worth figure: Celebrity Net Worth (October 2026), in USD. Biography and career facts: the person's Wikipedia article and linked reporting. Snapshot date for all StarWorth figures: 28 October 2026.
