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Originally from Rome, Italy, Alex Ardenti (born Alessandro Ardenti) immigrated to Wollongong, Australia at the age of three. While his parents were busy opening the family's first restaurant, Alex was taking pictures of the world around him with an Instamatic camera he received for his seventh birthday. His dad's super 8mm movie camera soon became his next toy to play with and a whole new world opened up before his eyes. He fell in love with images, still and moving.
Upon the Ardenti family's return to Italy, Alex by now a teenager, began lifting weights and by seventeen had become the country's youngest Mr. Italy. He followed that victory by winning the European Junior Bodybuilding Championships at nineteen while serving in the Italian Military Police.
Fascinated by the California lifestyle he saw in American bodybuilding magazines and movies Alex made the move to Los Angeles in the late '80s. Photography and filmmaking had taken a back seat to his bodybuilding career during his competitive years in Italy but re-emerged in full force once he came in contact with Hollywood. He felt they were his true calling all along. Even though in Rome he often played bit roles such as Hercules (Young Hercules/Lou Ferrigno) and countless live TV appearances and interviews, it was in Los Angeles that he stepped in front of the camera professionally at this stage in his life and supplemented his photography business by appearing in dozens of national commercials along with several TV show appearances. He was selected by Ridley Scott for a 7 UP commercial, played Kelly Bundy's last boyfriend on Married With Children and appeared several times in sketches on In Living Color and The Tonight Show with Jay Leno during the '90s and early 2000s. During this period he collaborated as an editorial photographer with over 35 international publications and had produced countless advertising campaigns for brands such as Weider, MetRx, EAS, Bodybuilding.com and GNC. He reached well over 1,500 published magazine covers to his credit and is considered by many to be one of the most creative and prolific forces in the fitness industry.
In 2007 he founded Ardenti Films, a boutique production company specializing in the health & fitness industry. The company has since produced spots for UFC Gym, Scorpion Helmets, American Gladiators Fitness, Mutant, Coast Fitness, Christine Bullock Evolution 20, Pre Fight, Horsepower, Upload, Multi Power and Scorpion Helmets to name a few. In the summer of 2013 Juntobox Films, a company co-created by Forest Whittaker, gave him a green light to direct his first feature film "The Driver" based on one of his story ideas and scheduled for a summer 2016 release but lack of funding halted the project. In September 2019 Alex released SUPPS: The Movie on streaming platforms, the first feature length documentary on the sports supplement industry and in October 2020 the first in-depth documentary on fitness and bodybuilding titled ACCESS MUSCLE launched on Amazon Prime Video. The first title of the series is "The Gym Culture".
He is filming a documentary on the life and career of legendary bodybuilding champion Frank Zane titled Frank Zane Defined scheduled to be released in 2026 and also the second and third installment of ACCESS MUSCLE documentary series.
Alex lives in Los Angeles married with three young boys: Ashton, August and Atticus. He visits family and friends regularly in Italy and Australia.
