John Dulaney was born in Oklahoma City, the city of divine Pamela Tiffin, December
11th, 1946, father TJ, mother Betty, he went to Harding High School, before transferring,
to Chicago before (Columbia College) and then Los Angeles (Columbia College). He encounters the
world of cinema at 19 years when he begins to work in a motion picture film laboratory for
duplication and special effects, his passion is hardly fulfilled and so turns to doing shorts in
Hollywood, then moves to New York, where he founds and runs a
small cinema in the East Village. 2 years later, John begins to travel and arrives in Italy in 1969.
Later in Spain he returns to Rome when he reads that Federico Fellini is preparing the set for
" Fellini’s Rome ", he is convinced that he must meet Fellini and then begins asking for a job until Fellini yields, granting
him one small part. By now John has understood that his future is the cinema, takes a house in via
Victoria, to two steps from the Spanish Steps, his first, true contracts as an actor are for
"The Return of Sabata" of Giancarlo Parolini where he worked side-by-side with Lee Van
Cleef and did "The Long Raid by Horseback of the Vendetta " by the
mythical Tanio Boccia, where he met the lead of the film Richard Harrison, a friendship that lasts
firmly today, with whom he later also made "Jess & Lester: Two Brothers in a Place Called
Trinità", with Renzo Genta.
The
encounter destined to change his career happen in a night of January of 1975 when, accidentally,
near the Hilton Hotel in Rome, on the set of “The Hit Squad”
by Bruno Corbucci, it happened the director was looking for an actor to poitray the role of the
Giraldi’s side-kick marshal (from the moment that
Jack La Cayenne, originally previewed for the part, abandoned the role without warning for a theater
role). Naturally the part, John as Balarin, enters into history, nearly as much as Nico Giraldi (Tomas Milian) and Venticello (Bombolo aka Franco Lechner). The
film gives John an incredible popolarity because, for the record, “The Hit Squad” is the third
biggest box office hit in 1976. “'The Hit Squad’ that wins doesn’t change”, paraphrasing an old soccer saying, but in John’s specific case not
there is nothing more pertinent and in the three following
years Ballarin is the right-hand-man of Nico in "Antitheft Squad", "Anti Swindle
Squad" and "Murder on the Tiber", meanwhile he finds time to participate in the
spectacular "Cassandra crossing", and "Bloody Red Hitchhike" by Pasquale Festa
Campanile. Towards the end of the '70s, John Dulaney buys an ancient country house in Umbria, where
he moves with his family and recommences to travel the world, always searching for something new.
We
find him again on a cinematographic set in the '80s, often in the Philippines where in 1988, he is
acting for Bruno Mattei for "Robowar", a new but short career in that corner of the Asian
world before his return, after more than 30 years, to the United States with one new activity (John
founds and directs Mind Logic, a WWW dot com).
Italy
is however in the blood of this forever young American young boy (see photos from 2001 to Rome!!),
destined to the contrary of what same he believed would be his destiny, to being remembered in
always, thanks to Ballarin who has given to all us, authentic moments of cinema history. Ballarin
thanks, keep yourself young!