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Michele Soavi

This handsome, blue-eyed, blond actor-turned-filmmaker first ventured behind the camera under the bloodshot eye of celebrated Italian horror maestro Dario Argento. Soavi began acting in 1976 but his classic good looks consigned him to playing Americans in cheap Italian knockoffs of Hollywood genre movies, notably in the absurdly gory work of Lucio Fulci. His fortunes changed upon meeting Argento who was then casting for "Inferno" (1980). Soavi lost the part but gained a mentor when hired as an assistant director on Argento's "Tenebrae/Unsane" (1982). Horror proved both hospitable and inspirational for Soavi, even inflecting his atmospheric direction of the music video for Bill Wyman's "Valley," from the soundtrack of Argento's first English-language feature, "Phenomena/Creepers" (1985), on which he also served as assistant director. Soavi performed similar chores on Argento's "Opera" (1987) and several horror outings by director Lamberto Bava.