Italy Cheers Hollywood Walk of Fame for Franco Nero, Carlo Rambaldi

Italy is celebrating scoring a rare double whammy in the selection for the Hollywood Walk of Fame class of 2026 list.

Along with Timothée Chalamet, Demi Moore, and Miley Cyrus, the 35-name list – announced by The Hollywood Chamber of Commerce on Wed. – includes both Spaghetti Westerns icon Franco Nero and special effects artist Carlo Rambaldi who is best known for creating the iconic E.T. character for Steven Spielberg’s “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.”

Italian undersecretary for culture Lucia Borgonzoni in a statement underlined Italy’s pride in the rare double honors for non U.S. talents and thanked marketing guru Tiziana Rocca, who is artistic director of Italy’s Taormina and Filming Italy festivals, for mounting the campaign that led to Nero getting a Hollywood star.

Nero, who gained worldwide fame in Sergio Corbucci’s 1966 classic Spaghetti Western “Django,” has since appeared in over 200 movies and TV shows, working with directors such as John Huston, Luis Buñuel, Claude Chabrol, Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Quentin Tarantino for whom the original “Django” is a cult film and source of inspiration. Nero riffed on his role in the original “Django” in a cameo he had in Tarantino’s “Django Unchained.” More recently Nero has acted in “Camelot,” “Die Hard 2,” “Letters to Juliet,” and John Wick: Chapter 2. He will soon be seen in Julian Schnabel’s “Hand of Dante.” Nero is married to actress Vanessa Redgrave, with whom he has a son, Carlo Gabriel Nero. 

Rambaldi, who died in 2012 at age 86, is a three-time Academy Award winner for his work in special effects, having won Oscars for “King Kong” (1976), “Alien” (1979) and “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial” (1983).