LOS ANGELES, (Reuters) – Oscar-winning Italian film producer Dino De Laurentiis, a master movie showman who brought some 500 films to the big screen including “La Strada,” “Serpico,” and “Three Days of the Condor,” has died at age 91.
The producer of Italian classics such as Federico Fellini’s “La Strada,” for which he won an Oscar, and Hollywood fare such as “Barbarella” and a “King Kong” remake, died at his Beverly Hills home late on Wednesday night, surrounded by his family.
De Laurentiis was known as much for movies including another foreign language Academy Award winner, “The Nights of Cabiria,” as he was for business ventures such as building the Dinocitta production studio outside Rome in 1964. And as many a producer had done before him, he enjoyed some spectacular successes, as well as highly public failures.