Riz Ortolani

Riziero «Riz» Ortolani (4 September 1931 in Pesaro, Italy) is an Italian film composer.

In the early 1950s Ortolani was founder and member of a jazz band of national Italian renown. His first score he wrote for the 1962 Paolo Cavara and Gualtiero Jacopetti pseudo-documentary Mondo Cane, whose main title-song More earned him a Grammy and also was nominated for an Oscar as Best Song.

The success of the soundtrack of Mondo Cane led Ortolani to score films in England and the US such as The 7th Dawn (1964), The Yellow Rolls-Royce (1964), The Glory Guys (1965) and The Spy with a Cold Nose (1966). Another world famous track was his main-title for the movie O Cangaceiro (1970).

Ortolani scored all or parts of over 200 films, including German westerns like Apache’s Last Battle (Old Shatterhand, 1964) and a long series of Italian giallo, spaghetti westerns, Eurospy, exploitation and mondo films.