Dino: The Life and Films of Dino De Laurentiis

In a career that has spanned six decades, Dino De Laurentiis has walked the cutting edge of filmmaking. He has personified the powerful, visionary Hollywood producer for one reason: he invented the role. Dino: The Life and Films of Dino De Laurentiis celebrates this living legend and his passionate, exhilarating life in pictures. How a kid from the Neapolitan sticks managed to compile such an impressive resume is itself a fascinating tale.
De Laurentiis was born not far from Naples in 1919. His father owned a small pasta factory, and the teenage Dino roamed the peninsula as a sales representative. He then became an apprentice actor who gravitated towards the least celebrated aspect of movie making: producing. From the beginning of his career, Dino was determined to transform the provincial Italian cinema into a world famous industry. Borrowing money left and right, forming and dissolving a famous partnership with Carlo Ponti - who married Italian film goddess Sophia Loren - De Laurentiis built a production empire and an enormous studio complex named, appropriately, Dinocitta (Dino's city). In Italy, he worked with Federico Fellini, Roberto Rossellini, and Vittorio De Sica, resulting in groundbreaking films - La Strada, Dov'e la liberta and The Bandit. Knowing no English, the unstoppable De Laurentiis later sailed to the United States and went on to produce American classics: Serpico, Three Days of the Condor, Ragtime - and hundreds more. His killer instincts for art and commerce have never abandoned him, nor has his sheer enthusiasm: "I love my work," he insists. "I've always believed that you can't make movies if you don't passionately love the cinema."
Based on extensive interviews with De Laurentiis, his family, and his colleagues and filled with extraordinary photographs, this biography by Italian film critics Tullio Kezich and Alessandra Levantesi takes us from Italy to Hollywood and back, exposing the inner workings of the silver screen and luminaries including Roberto Rossellini; Vittorio De Sica; Robert Altman; Ridley Scott; Martin Scorsese; Roman Polanski; and many more. Recently updated for an American audience, Dino: The Life and Films of Dino De Laurentiis is a chronicle of high art, entrepreneurial daring, box-office savvy, and that peculiarly Italian zest for la dolce vita.