About A Tribute to Dino De Laurentiis

Hollywood icon and international legend Dino De Laurentiis was one of the most prolific and respected producers in film history when he passed away in 2010 at the age of 91. From his early neorealist masterpieces, Bitter Rice and Fellini’s Nights of Cabiria and La Strada, for which he received an Academy Award, to big-budget spectaculars like Barbarella, King Kong, Dune and Conan the Barbarian, to his recent reinvention of the Hannibal Lecter franchise, De Laurentiis’s career spanned 73 years in the film industry. With the support and guidance of the De Laurentiis family, the School of Cinematic Arts will pay homage to the exceptional variety and longevity that marked his career with screenings of his films and a panel discussion featuring his friends, family and colleagues.

About Dino De Laurentiis

Dino De Laurentiis was born in Torre Annunziata, a province of Naples, in 1919. As a teenager he worked as a sales representative for his father, who owned a small pasta factory. But while food would be one of his great loves, his first grand passion was for the cinema.



With the fearlessness and the indefatigable energy that he would be known for his entire life and career, De Laurentiis produced his first movie at the age of 21, L’ultimo Combattimento (1940) and later his first success, Bitter Rice (1949). He would go on to produce countless of films in his homeland in the next three decades, and alongside such figures as Carlo Ponti, Federico Fellini, Vittorio De Sica and Roberto Rossellini, he revitalized Italian cinema, winning accolades and Oscars for films such as La Strada (1956) and Nights of Cabiria (1957).



In 1973, at the age of 54 and with a string of successes that would have satisfied any lesser man, Dino instead chose to begin again in America. It was during this time that he made his mark in Hollywood, with acclaimed films such as The Valachi Papers (1971), Serpico (1973), Death Wish (1974), Three Days of the Condor (1975), The Shootist (1976), Ragtime (1981), Conan the Barbarian (1982), and Blue Velvet (1986). Beside these famous films Dino also became known for such commercial successes and cult favorites as: Barbarella (1968), King Kong (1976), Dune (1984), Flash Gordon (1980) and Manhunter (1986), and worked with such directors as Ridley Scott, David Cronenberg, Sam Raimi, the Wachowski Brothers, Jonathan Mostow and David Lynch. His later films include U-571 (2000), Hannibal (2001), Red Dragon (2002), Hannibal Rising (2007), The Last Legion (2007), and Virgin Territory (2007).



Dino’s career spanned more than seven decades and over 600 movies. He also built film studios: the Dinocitta (Dino’s city) just outside of Rome; Roadshow Studios on the Gold Coast of Australia; North Carolina Film Studios (AKA Screen Gem Studios) in Wilmington, North Carolina; and the CLA De Laurentiis Studios in Ouarzazate Morocco. And throughout it all was his indomitable spirit, the same verve and dynamism that would constantly push him “faster, faster; higher, higher.”

Dino died on November 10, 2010 at the age of 91 in his home in Beverly Hills. And earlier on that very day he had a full day of meetings: one for rebooting his favorite character Barbarella, and the other to open Italian restaurants in China.



“I am a man of three ‘Cs:’ Cervello, Cuore, Coglioni.” – Dino De Laurentiis

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