Franco Micalizzi was born in Rome on December 21, 1939. He learned to play the piano and guitar at a young age. By the end of the 50s, the musician and composer Robby Poitevin becomes aware of Micalizzi and asks him to join his band "I Robby's" as a guitarist. The band records eight singles between 1959 and 1961 and also supports other artists as a backing band in their recordings, including Emilio Pericoli and Ornella Vanoni. The band eventually part ways and Franco Micalizzi starts to focus more on composing film music. He writes his first soundtrack in 1967 for the Italian romance "Il ragazzo che sapeva amare" by director Enzo Dell'Aquila.
They call me Trinity 
Franco Micalizzi's big breakthrough came in 1970 when he composed the soundtrack to “They call me Trinity“ for Enzo Barboni. Producer Italo Zingarelli is a friend of Micalizzi and asks him to write the soundtrack. After reading the script, he directly composes the famous title song, which is given English lyrics by Lally Scott. But during the audition, the song fails. Zingarelli wants a slower and broader theme, a kind of lullaby. So Micalizzi composes a new theme, which then turned out to be too slow when the film was edited. The editor called Micalizzi and complained that the two heroes almost have to move in slow motion to make it fit the music. A new meeting is set up with Zingarelli and director Barboni and this time Micalizzi is able to get his original theme song accepted, partly because Micalizzi has an ally in Barboni who really likes the lively piece. The Italian-Australian singer Annibale Giannarelli is hired as the singer. Shortly after the recording he traveled back to Australia, and only became aware of the success of the piece at a much later stage. At the beginning of this year Annibale returned to the public eye. He took part in the show "The Voice senior" and won!
GREAT SUCCESS WITH MUSIC FOR POLICE MOVIES
Franco Micalizzi, on the other hand, celebrated another chart success in Italy as early as 1974 with the theme song he composed for the film "The Last Snow of Spring" (L'ultima neve di primavera). His work for the directors Umberto Lenzi and Marino Girolami, for whom he composed the music for some of the most popular police movies of the time, also achieved great fame: "The Viper" (Roma a mano armata, 1975), "Violent Naples" (Napoli violenta, 1976), "Cop Hunter" (Italia a mano armata, 1976), "The Cynic, the Rat and the Fist" (Il cinico, l'infame, il violento, 1977) and "Brothers Till We Die" (La banda del gobbo, 1978). When the police movie genre turned towards comedy in the 80s, Micalizzi remained faithful to the genre and was able to achieve more success. For example, he wrote music for two popular Nico Giraldi comedies with Tomas Milian, named "Delitto a Porta Romana", 1980) and "Delitto sull'autostrada", 1982.
MORE MUSIC FOR BUD SPENCER AND TERRENCE HILL
In the mid-80s Micalizzi works with Bud Spencer and Terence Hill again, for two films. As with "They call me Trinity", it is again director Enzo Barboni who hires him. The soundtracks to “Go for It “ (Nati con la camicia, 1983) and “Double Trouble“ (Non c'è due senza quattro, 1984) become very successful and the two title songs "In the middle of all that trouble again" and "What's going on in Brazil?" are still very popular among Spencer/Hill fans today. Another collaboration with Terence Hill comes another 30 years later when in 2017 he is looking for a theme song for his cinema comeback "My name is Somebody" (Il mio nome è Thomas, 2018), which built a bridge to his first big cinema success "They call me Trinity ". He remembers Micalizzi, who composed the original music at the time. Micalizzi then writes the song "The World under my Shoes", which becomes the title song of the film. In the song, Micalizzi plays a variation of the famous whistle from the Trinity theme song and is even able to enlist the original whistler from back then, the 91-year-old Alessandro Alessandroni at the time, for the recording.
Incidentally, the whistle from the Trinity song has also remained in the memory of American director Quentin Tarantino. He uses Micalizzi's original melody for the finale in his film "Django Unchained" (2012). Tarantino used Micalizzi for the first time back in 2007. In his film "Death Proof", the title song from "Cop Hunter" (Italia a mano armata, 1976) can be heard.
