Sergio Sollima (April 17, 1921 – July 1, 2015) was an Italian film director and script writer. Like many Italian cult directors, Sollima started his career by directing mostly sword and sandal movies that were very popular in the early 1960s. After the genre's popularity quickly died out, Sollima was among the first ones to move to spaghetti westerns. The Big Gundown (starring Lee Van Cleef and Tomas Milian) was released in 1966 with big success, despite the fact that it had to compete with Ser ...