Fabio Testi's hometown of Peschiera del Garda was home to Bertolazzi Film, a motion picture studio specializing in colorful pirate movies, with Lake Garda serving as a stand-in for the Caribbean. Testi began his career as an extra, stunt man, and body double at Bertolazzi, appearing in classic westerns such as The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966) and Once Upon a Time in the West (1968).
As a stunt man, Testi gained experience and eventually started landing small film roles, which helped finance his architectural studies at the Antón Maria Lorgna Institute in Verona. After graduating, he pursued further studies at Verona's Academy of Fine Arts to improve his acting skills.
Testi's early film career consisted of genre films, often lesser-known spaghetti westerns like One Damned Day at Dawn... Django Meets Sartana! (1970). However, he was dissatisfied with the roles he was getting and attended diction classes in Cambridge to improve his English and acting lessons in London.
His breakthrough came when he was cast by Vittorio De Sica in the Oscar-winning historical drama The Garden of the Finzi-Continis (1970). Following the film's success, Testi alternated between performing in art films and genre films, working with directors like Claude Chabrol and Denys de La Patellière.
Throughout his career, Testi has acted alongside international stars like Oliver Reed, Anthony Quinn, Robert Mitchum, Eli Wallach, and David Hemmings. In the 1980s, he began to focus more on television productions and later turned his attention to the theatre, starring in a stage adaptation of Federico Fellini's La Strada (1954).
In addition to his acting career, Testi has also pursued other interests, including becoming a kiwi farmer, which grew from a hobby into a lucrative business. Italy became Europe's first producer of kiwi fruit as a result. In 2006, Testi ran for political office as Mayor of Verona, representing the conservative Cattolici Liberali Cristiani.
Testi has been romantically linked to actresses Ursula Andress, Edwige Fenech, Jean Seberg, and Charlotte Rampling, and has been married twice, first to Spanish fashion designer and make-up artist Lola Navarro from 1984 to 1996, and then to art gallery curator Antonella Liguori.
