Dino De Laurentiis
| Dino De Laurentiis | |
|---|---|
 De Laurentiis in 2009 | |
| Born |
Agostino De Laurentiis 8 August 1919 Torre Annunziata, Campania, Italy |
| Died |
10 November 2010 (aged 91) Beverly Hills, California |
| Resting place | Cimitero Comunale Torre Annunziata |
| Occupation | film producer |
| Years active | 1938–2010 |
| Spouse(s) |
Silvana Mangano (m.1949-div.1988; 4 children) Martha Schumacher (m.1990–2010; his death, 2 children) |
Agostino "Dino" De Laurentiis (Italian: [ˈdiːno de lauˈrɛntis] 8 August 1919 – 10 November 2010) was an Italian film producer. Along with Carlo Ponti, he was one of the producers that brought Italian cinema to the international scene at the end of the Second World War. He produced or co-produced more than 500 films, of which 38 were nominated for Academy Awards. He also had a brief acting career in the late 1930s and early 1940s.
Early life
He was born at Torre Annunziata in the province of Naples, and grew up selling spaghetti made by his father's pasta factory. He started his studies at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia in Rome in the years 1937-1938 then interrupted by the outbreak of the Second World War.
Career
Film production
Following his first movie, L'ultimo Combattimento (1940), Laurentiis produced nearly 150 films during the next seven decades. In 1946 his company, the Dino de Laurentiis Cinematografica, moved into production. In the early years, De Laurentiis produced Italian neorealist films such as Bitter Rice (1946) and the Fellini classics La Strada (1954) and Nights of Cabiria (1956), often in collaboration with producer Carlo Ponti. In the 1960s, Laurentiis built his own studio facilities, although these financially collapsed during the 1970s. During this period, though, De Laurentiis produced such films as Barabbas (1961), a Christian religious epic; The Bible: In the Beginning (1966), Kiss the Girls and Make Them Die, an imitation James Bond film; Navajo Joe (1966), a spaghetti western; Anzio (1968), a World War II film; Barbarella (1968) and Danger: Diabolik (1968), both successful comic book adaptations; and The Valachi Papers (1972), made to coincide with the popularity of The Godfather.
De Laurentiis relocated to the United States in 1976,[1] and became an American citizen in 1986.[2] In the 1980s he had his own studio, De Laurentiis Entertainment Group (DEG), based in Wilmington, North Carolina; the building of the studio quickly made Wilmington a busy center of film and television production.[3]
De Laurentiis made a number of successful and acclaimed films, including The Scientific Cardplayer (1972), Serpico (1973), Death Wish (1974), Mandingo (1975), Three Days of the Condor (1975), The Shootist (1976), Drum (1976), Ingmar Bergman's The Serpent's Egg (1977), Ragtime (1981), Conan the Barbarian (1982), Blue Velvet (1986) and Breakdown (1997). De Laurentiis' name become well known through the 1976 King Kong remake, which was a commercial hit; Lipstick (1976), a rape and revenge drama; Orca (1977), a killer whale film; The White Buffalo (1977), a western; the disaster movie Hurricane (1979); the remake of Flash Gordon (1980); David Lynch's Dune (1984); and King Kong Lives (1986). De Laurentiis also made several adaptations of Stephen King's works, including The Dead Zone (1983), Cat's Eye (1985), Silver Bullet (1985), and Maximum Overdrive (1986). De Laurentiis's company was involved with the horror sequels Halloween II (1981), Evil Dead II (1987) and Army of Darkness (1992).
De Laurentiis also produced the first Hannibal Lecter film, Manhunter (1986), an adaptation of the Thomas Harris novel Red Dragon. He passed on adapting the novels' sequel, The Silence of the Lambs (1991), but produced the two follow-ups, Hannibal (2001) and Red Dragon (2002), a re-adaptation of the novel. He also produced the prequel Hannibal Rising (2007), which tells the story of how Hannibal becomes a serial killer.
DDL Foodshow
In the 1980s, de Laurentiis owned and operated DDL Foodshow, a specialty retailer with two gourmet Italian markets in New York City and Los Angeles.[4]
Family
His brief first marriage in Italy was annulled.[5] In 1949, De Laurentiis married actress Silvana Mangano, with whom he had four children: Veronica; Raffaella, who is also a film producer; Federico, another producer who died in a plane crash in 1981 (Dino's movie Dune is dedicated to him); and Francesca. De Laurentiis and Mangano divorced in 1988;[6] she died in 1989. In 1990, he married Martha Schumacher, who produced many of his films since 1985, and with whom he had two daughters, Carolyna and Dina. One of his grandchildren is Giada De Laurentiis, host of Everyday Italian, Behind the Bash, Giada at Home, and Giada's Weekend Getaways on Food Network. He was the younger brother of Luigi De Laurentiis, who became a film producer after Dino did, and uncle of Aurelio De Laurentiis, also a producer and the chairman of S.S.C. Napoli football club.
Awards and recognitions
In 1958, he won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film for producing La Strada, back when producers and directors would win the award instead of the country it was made in.
In 2001, he received the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
In 2012, he received the America Award of the Italy-USA Foundation (in memory).
Death
De Laurentiis died on 10 November 2010 at his residence in Beverly Hills. He was 91 years old.[7][8][9][10]
Selected filmography
References
- ↑ Lane, John Francis (11 November 2010). "Obituary: Dino De Laurentiis". The Guardian. Retrieved 11 November 2010.
- ↑ Delugach, Al (20 February 1988). "De Laurentiis Resigns From Film Group". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 9 January 2015.
- ↑ "Laurentiis has others looking our way". Wilmington Morning Star. 9 July 1984. p. 1C. Retrieved 9 January 2015.
- ↑ Kalogerakis, George (February 2002). "Let's Do Lunch". Foodandwine.com. Retrieved 12 November 2010.
- ↑ Arnold, Laurence (11 November 2010). "Dino De Laurentiis, Producer of Film Spectacles, Dies at 91". Business Week. Retrieved 11 November 2010.
- ↑ Reuters (11 November 2010). "Italian film producer Dino De Laurentiis dies". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved 11 November 2010.
- ↑ "Filmmaker Dino De Laurentiis Dies at Age 91". USA Today. 11 November 2010. Retrieved 11 November 2010.
- ↑ "Movie Producer Dino de Laurentiis dies". CNN. 11 November 2010. Retrieved 11 November 2010.
- ↑ Mondello, Bob (11 November 2010). "Dino De Laurentiis: For Decades, A Big-Picture Guy". NPR. Retrieved 11 November 2010.
- ↑ "Funeral services for De Laurentiis will be held Monday". Los Angeles Times (Los Angeles: Tribune Co). 13 November 2010. ISSN 0458-3035. Retrieved 9 January 2015.
External links
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to Dino De Laurentiis. |
- Dino De Laurentiis Company Official site
- Dino De Laurentiis at Find a Grave
- Dino De Laurentiis at the Internet Movie Database
- Who Was Dino De Laurentiis? – image slideshow by Life magazine
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