Flashbacks

Art Hansl was born with a silver spoon in his mouth the size of a shovel, though it melted away during the depression years. His mother was a writer with a play on Broadway at age twenty-two; his father an athlete and an associate of J.P. Morgan & Company. They fired him off to private schools at an early age, where he found an aptitutude for languages. After his father died, young Art struck out on his own.
He joined the Marine Corps during the Korean conflict but the war was...
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Art Hansl was born with a silver spoon in his mouth the size of a shovel, though it melted away during the depression years. His mother was a writer with a play on Broadway at age twenty-two; his father an athlete and an associate of J.P. Morgan & Company. They fired him off to private schools at an early age, where he found an aptitutude for languages. After his father died, young Art struck out on his own.
He joined the Marine Corps during the Korean conflict but the war was over before he was ready to ship out; instead he spent his time as a military cop with enough time on his hands or larceny in his soul to consider stealing a quantity of automatic weapons and selling them in Tijuana -- a bad plan aborted by circumstance. Or maybe even a conscience.
After the Corps, he returned to Mexico for three weeks and stayed for three years. It was a sunny place for shady people and he met a lot of them, from gangsters to con artists, along with a variety of playboys and playgirls. a lovely local, Brenda Conde, taught him Spanish. A plan to open a beach club wit a couple of seriously unstable partners was dropped just in time. He moved on.
Spain was chap and pleasant but Italy beckoned because of a beautiful, successful actress and model in Rome, whom he later married. He will always credit Mary Arden for urging him out of his lackadaisical lifestyle. They partnered in a series of commercials that jumped to the head of the line in Italy -- a stepping stone to feature films. His first was a barely visible gig in a Cast a Giant Shadow with Kirk Douglas, but he went on to more prominent parts with Ugo Tognazzi, Stefania Sandrelli and Ursula Andress. He was usually cast in action pictures, James Bond rip-offs, because he looked good and moved well, though his acting clearly hadn't been nurtured by the Hollywood studio system. Location work took him to slave markets in Marrakech, through an avalance in Switzerland, and he survived a mob in Yugoslavia. But the Dolce Vita ended around 1968 and Art, among other expat actors, headed for California.
After losing a television series to Darren McGavin, he decided to return to Meixco. There he made a dozen or more films, including a soap opeara with Maria Félix, Mexico's favorite leading lady. he went from heroes to heavies -- more fun to play.
Back in California again, he did a stint in the soap opera, General Hospital, a couple of parts in films with Charlie Bronson and made a few lucrative commercials. Divorced now, he turned to writing with the encouragement of an outrageously beautiful French girl he fell in love with and married in a rare moment of insight. Four novels later he decided to put down the events that brought him to this point. Voila!
"Art Hansl's book is a delightful, sexy, humorous romp through his life and specifically the bizarre world of B films in 60's Italy, Mexico and beyond." Barnaby Conrad, international best-selling author and founder of the Santa Barbara Writers Conference.
"Few memoirs and written with the style and lyrical flair Art Hansl so evidently displays in Flashbacks. It reads like a terrific novel." Daniel Alef, award-winning novelist and former syndicated columnist.