Dino De Laurentiis

Children6, including Veronica and RaffaellaRelatives

Agostino "Dino" De Laurentiis (Italian: [ˈdiːno de lauˈrɛnti.is]; 8 August 1919 – 10 November 2010) was an Italian film producer and businessman who held both Italian and American citizenship. Following a brief acting career in the late 1930s and early 1940s, he moved into film production; alongside Carlo Ponti, he brought Italian cinema to the international scene in the post-World War II period. He produced or co-produced over 500 films, with 38 of his Hollywood films receiving Academy Award nominations. He was also the creator and operator of DDL Foodshow, a chain of Italian specialty foods stores.

Early life

Agostino De Laurentiis was born in Torre Annunziata, which was then in the Kingdom of Italy, on 8 August 1919. He grew up selling spaghetti made by his father's pasta factory. His older brother, Luigi De Laurentiis (1917–1992), later followed him into film production. He studied at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia in 1937 and 1938, but his studies were interrupted by the outbreak of World War II.^[1]

Career

Film production

De Laurentiis produced his first film, L'ultimo Combattimento, in 1941. His company, the Dino de Laurentiis Cinematografica, moved into film production in 1946. In the early years, De Laurentiis produced Italian neorealist films such as Bitter Rice (1949) and the early Fellini works La Strada (1954) and Nights of Cabiria (1956), often in collaboration with producer Carlo Ponti.

In the 1960s, De Laurentiis built his own studio facilities. He 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), released before its originally scheduled date in order to capitalize on the popularity of The Godfather.^{[citation needed]} His studio financially collapsed during the 1970s.

In the 1980s, he had his own studio: De Laurentiis Entertainment Group (DEG) based in Wilmington, North Carolina. The studio made Wilmington an unexpected center of film and television production.^[2] In 1990, he obtained backing from an Italian friend and formed another company: Dino De Laurentiis Communications in Beverly Hills.

De Laurentiis produced a number of successful 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 became 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 produced several adaptations of Stephen King works, including The Dead Zone (1983), Cat's Eye (1985), Silver Bullet (1985), and Maximum Overdrive (1986). De Laurentiis' 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),^{[citation needed]} 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

DDL Foodshow was an Italian specialty foods store with three locations: two in New York City and one in Beverly Hills. They were opened in the mid-1980s, and were owned and operated by De Laurentiis.^[3]

The first store was opened in the restored palm court in the ornate lobby of the historical Endicott Hotel now a co-op on Manhattan's Upper West Side in close proximity to the older establishment, Zabar's food emporium on Broadway.^[4] The first NYC store opened in November 1982, and it was reported that the store "opened to crowds of 30,000 over the Thanksgiving weekend, when de Laurentiis himself greeted customers at the door". The store's assistant manager said that "it was like the premiere of a movie".^[5]

Food critic Gael Greene wrote a scathing review on the opening in New York.^[4] In an interview with the Chicago Tribune a month later, she admitted that the store was "probably the most stunningly handsome grocery in the world, certainly in New York", but "the pricing was insane. They hadn't paid enough attention to the competition." She reported that she'd talked to De Laurentiis: "Dino's reaction was that I'm full of it. And we're meeting over a bowl of pasta to discuss it."^[6] A review in The San Francisco Examiner said that it was "worth a peek and a purchase".^[7][8]

DDL Foodshow was later considered to be a forebear of the new Italian specialty goods food-store restaurant dining attraction Eataly.^[9]

Personal life

De Laurentiis' brief first marriage in Italy was annulled.^[10]

In 1949, De Laurentiis married Italian-British actress Silvana Mangano, with whom he had four children: Veronica, an author and actress; Raffaella, a fellow film producer; Federico, a fellow film producer who died in a plane crash in 1981; and Francesca. His granddaughter through Veronica is chef Giada De Laurentiis, while his nephew through his brother Luigi is fellow film producer Aurelio De Laurentiis. He and Mangano divorced in 1988,^[11] and she died of lung cancer the following year.

Having lived in the U.S. since 1976,^[12] De Laurentiis became an American citizen in 1986.^[13]

In 1990, De Laurentiis married American producer Martha Schumacher, who had produced many of his films since 1985. They had two daughters named Carolyna and Dina and remained married until his death in 2010. Schumacher died of cancer in 2021.

Death

On 10 November 2010, at the age of 91, De Laurentiis died at his home in Beverly Hills, California.^{[14][15][16][17]}

Awards and recognitions

In 1958, De Laurentiis won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film for producing La Strada. It was the only time where individuals could win the award instead of the country it was made in and in the case of the first Foreign Film Oscar, he and his fellow producer won the Academy Award, as opposed to the director of the film Federico Fellini.

In 2001, De Laurentiis received the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.^[18]

In 2012, De Laurentiis posthumously received the America Award of the Italy–USA Foundation.^{[citation needed]}

Filmography

Films produced

Year	Title	Director	Notes
1946	Black Eagle	Riccardo Freda
	The Bandit	Alberto Lattuada
1947	The Captain's Daughter	Mario Camerini
	Bullet for Stefano	Duilio Coletti
1948	Bitter Rice	Giuseppe De Santis
	The Street Has Many Dreams	Mario Camerini
1949	The Wolf of the Sila	Duilio Coletti
1951	Anna	Alberto Lattuada
1952	Europe '51	Roberto Rossellini
	Lieutenant Giorgio	Raffaello Matarazzo
	Toto in Color	Steno
1953	Funniest Show on Earth	Mario Mattoli
	The Unfaithfuls	Mario Monicelli
	Man, Beast and Virtue	Steno
1954	La Strada	Federico Fellini
	Attila	Pietro Francisci
	Woman of Rome	Luigi Zampa
	The Gold of Naples	Vittorio De Sica
	Poverty and Nobility	Mario Mattoli
	Where Is Freedom?	Roberto Rossellini
	A Slice of Life	Alessandro Blasetti, Paul Paviot
	An American in Rome	Steno
1955	Ulysses	Mario Camerini
	The River Girl	Mario Soldati
	Mambo	Robert Rossen
	The Miller's Beautiful Wife	Mario Camerini
1956	War and Peace	King Vidor
	Nights of Cabiria	Federico Fellini
1958	This Angry Age	René Clément
	Tempest	Alberto Lattuada
1959	The Great War	Mario Monicelli
1960	Everybody Go Home	Luigi Comencini
	Five Branded Women	Martin Ritt
	Under Ten Flags	Duilio Coletti
	Crimen	Mario Camerini
	The Hunchback of Rome	Carlo Lizzani
1961	The Last Judgment	Vittorio De Sica
	A Difficult Life	Dino Risi
	The Fascist	Luciano Salce
	The Best of Enemies	Guy Hamilton
	Black City	Duilio Coletti
1962	Mafioso	Alberto Lattuada
	The Italian Brigands	Mario Camerini
1963	Il Boom	Vittorio De Sica
	The Verona Trial	Carlo Lizzani
1964	My Wife	Luigi Comencini, Mauro Bolognini, Tinto Brass
1965	Battle of the Bulge [citation needed]	Ken Annakin	Uncredited
1966	The Bible: In the Beginning	John Huston
	Kiss the Girls and Make Them Die	Henry Levin
	Navajo Joe	Sergio Corbucci
	The Hills Run Red	Carlo Lizzani
1967	The Stranger	Luchino Visconti
	Matchless	Alberto Lattuada
	The Witches	Luchino Visconti, Mauro Bolognini, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Franco Rossi, Vittorio De Sica
1968	Danger: Diabolik	Mario Bava
	Barbarella	Roger Vadim
	Anzio	Edward Dmytryk, Duilio Coletti
	Bandits in Milan	Carlo Lizzani
	Caprice Italian Style	Mauro Bolognini, Mario Monicelli, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Steno
1969	Fräulein Doktor	Alberto Lattuada
	Brief Season	Renato Castellani
	The Bandit	Carlo Lizzani
1970	A Man Called Sledge	Vic Morrow
	Waterloo	Sergei Bondarchuk
	The Deserter	Burt Kennedy
1972	The Valachi Papers	Terence Young
	The Assassin of Rome	Damiano Damiani
	The Most Wonderful Evening of My Life	Ettore Scola
1973	Serpico	Sidney Lumet
	Chino	John Sturges
	Mean Frank and Crazy Tony	Michele Lupo
1974	Death Wish	Michael Winner
	Two Missionaries	Franco Rossi
	Crazy Joe	Carlo Lizzani
	Three Tough Guys	Duccio Tessari
1975	Mandingo	Richard Fleischer
1976	King Kong	John Guillermin
	Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull's History Lesson	Robert Altman
	Drum	Steve Carver
	The Serpent's Egg	Ingmar Bergman
	The Shootist	Don Siegel
1977	Orca	Michael Anderson
1978	The Brink's Job	William Friedkin
	King of the Gypsies	Frank Pierson
1979	Hurricane	Jan Troell
1980	Flash Gordon	Mike Hodges
1981	Beyond the Reef	Frank C. Clarke
	Halloween II	Rick Rosenthal
	Ragtime	Miloš Forman
1982	Fighting Back	Lewis Teague
	Conan the Barbarian	John Milius
	Amityville II: The Possession	Damiano Damiani
	Halloween III: Season of the Witch	Tommy Lee Wallace
1983	Amityville 3-D	Richard Fleischer
	Dead Zone	David Cronenberg
1984	The Bounty	Roger Donaldson
	Firestarter	Mark L. Lester
	Conan the Destroyer	Richard Fleischer
	Dune	David Lynch
1985	Maximum Overdrive	Stephen King
	Marie	Roger Donaldson
	Silver Bullet	Daniel Attias
	Cat's Eye	Lewis Teague
	Year of the Dragon	Michael Cimino
	Red Sonja	Richard Fleischer
1986	Crimes of the Heart	Bruce Beresford
	Raw Deal	John Irvin
	Blue Velvet	David Lynch
	Trick or Treat	Charles Martin Smith
	Tai-Pan	Daryl Duke
	Manhunter	Michael Mann
	King Kong Lives	John Guillermin
1987	Million Dollar Mystery	Richard Fleischer
	Hiding Out	Bob Giraldi
	Evil Dead II	Sam Raimi
	The Bedroom Window	Curtis Hanson
	From the Hip	Bob Clark
1989	Collision Course	Lewis Teague
1990	Sometimes They Come Back	Tom McLoughlin
	Desperate Hours	Michael Cimino
1992	Once Upon a Crime	Eugene Levy
	Kuffs	Bruce A. Evans
	Army of Darkness	Sam Raimi
	Body of Evidence	Uli Edel
1995	Solomon & Sheba	Robert Young
	Slave of Dreams
	Rumpelstiltskin	Mark Jones
	Assassins	Richard Donner
1996	Unforgettable	John Dahl
	Bound	The Wachowskis
1997	Breakdown	Jonathan Mostow
2000	U-571
2001	Hannibal	Ridley Scott
2002	Red Dragon	Brett Ratner
2006	The Last Legion	Doug Lefler
2007	Hannibal Rising	Peter Webber
	Virgin Territory	David Leland

References

External links

• Dino De Laurentiis Company Official site
• Dino De Laurentiis at IMDb
• Who Was Dino De Laurentiis? Archived 15 November 2010 at the Wayback Machine – image slideshow by Life magazine