Gian Maria Volonté, great actor and activist, was born in Milan on April 9, 1933. At 17, he began as a theatre actor in Turin in the company ''I Nomadi'' by Edoardo Maltese, a few years later he moved to Rome and began to attend the Academy of national dramatic art, where he stood out as a very talented young man.

In the 60s he began his film career and after his great success in western films where he played an exceptional fierce and neurotic bandit, he moved on to deal with political and social issues, denouncing the injustices of his time and the past. A great actor revered for his great acting skills and for his willingness to take the side of the weakest and most defenceless.

Among the countless awards collected during his career, we remember the Golden Globe for best actor for the interpretation of the film '' La Classe Operaia va in Paradiso '' and the Golden Lion for lifetime achievement. In 1994, while shooting a film, he suddenly suffered a heart attack and died on the Greek island of Florina at the age of sixty-one. He was buried under a tree in the small cemetery of La Maddalena, in Sardinia.