Dino De Laurentiis

**Agostino De Laurentiis**, usually credited as **Dino De Laurentiis** (8 August 1919 – 10 November 2010), was an Italian Academy Award-winning movie producer.

## Early life

Agostino De Laurentiis was born in Torre Annunziata, 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.

## Career

His first movie was _L'ultimo Combattimento_ in 1940. He has produced nearly 150 movies. In 1946 his company, the Dino de Laurentiis Cinematografica, moved into movie production. In the early years, De Laurentiis produced neorealist films such as _Bitter Rice_ (1946) and the Fellini classics _La Strada_ (1954) and _Nights of Cabiria_ (1956). Neorealist is a style about the poor and working class. In the 1960s, De Laurentiis built his own studio facilities. During this period, De Laurentiis produced such films as _Kiss the Girls and Make Them Die_, _Navajo Joe_ (1966), and _Barbarella_ (1968).

In the 1970s, De Laurentiis moved to the US. He created his own studio, De Laurentiis Entertainment Group (DEG), based in Wilmington, North Carolina. During this period De Laurentiis made a number of successful and acclaimed movies, including _Serpico_ (1973), _Death Wish_ (1974), _Mandingo_ (1975), _Three Days of the Condor_ (1975), _The Shootist_ (1976), Ingmar Bergman's _The Serpent's Egg_ (1977), _Ragtime_ (1981), _Conan the Barbarian_ (1982) and _Blue Velvet_ (1986).

It is for his more infamous productions that De Laurentiis's name has become known: The _King Kong_ (1976) remake, which was a commercial hit, _Lipstick_, the killer whale movie _Orca_ (1977); _The White Buffalo_ (1977); the disaster movie _Hurricane_ (1979); the remake of _Flash Gordon_ (1980); _Halloween II_ (the 1981 sequel to John Carpenter's 1978 classic horror movie); David Lynch's _Dune_ (1984); and _King Kong Lives_ (1986). De Laurentiis also made several adaptations of Stephen King's works during this time, including _The Dead Zone_ (1983), _Cat's Eye_ (1985), _Silver Bullet_ (1985) and _Maximum Overdrive_ (1986); _Army of Darkness_ (1992) was produced jointly by De Laurentiis, Robert Tapert and the movie's star Bruce Campbell.

De Laurentiis also produced the first Hannibal Lecter movie _Manhunter_ (1986), _Hannibal_ (2001) and _Red Dragon_ (2002), a remake of _Manhunter_. He also produced _Hannibal Rising_ (2007).

## Awards

In 2001 he received the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

## Death

Laurentiis died on 10 November 2010 at his residence in Beverly Hills, California.

## Personal life

He had four children with his first wife, actress Silvana Mangano, who died in 1989. He later married movie producer Martha Schumacher with whom he had two daughters. One of the children from his first marriage, Raffaella De Laurentiis, is also a producer; another, Federico De Laurentiis (28 February 1955 – 15 July 1981), died at 26 in an airplane crash. His granddaughter is Giada De Laurentiis, host of _Everyday Italian_, _Behind the Bash_, _Giada at Home_ and _Giada's Weekend Getaways_ on Food Network. His nephew is Aurelio De Laurentiis, a film producer and the chairman of SSC Napoli football club.

## Filmography

Selected filmography from 1965 to the present.
|Year||Title||Director|
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
|1965|_Battle of the Bulge_|Ken Annakin|||
|1968|_Danger: Diabolik_|Mario Bava|||
|_Barbarella_|Roger Vadim||||
|1973|_Serpico_|Sidney Lumet|||
|1974|_Death Wish_|Michael Winner|||
|1976|_King Kong_|John Guillermin|||
|1980|_Flash Gordon_|Mike Hodges|||
|1981|_Halloween II_|Rick Rosenthal|||
|_Ragtime_|Miloš Forman||||
|1982|_Fighting Back_|Lewis Teague|||
|_Conan the Barbarian_|John Milius||||
|_Amityville II: The Possession_|Damiano Damiani||||
|1983|_Amityville 3-D_|Richard Fleischer|||
|_Halloween III: Season of the Witch_|Tommy Lee Wallace||||
|_Dead Zone_|David Cronenberg||||
|1984|_Yado_|Richard Fleischer|||
|_Conan the Destroyer_|Richard Fleischer||||
|_Firestarter_|Mark L. Lester||||
|_Dune_|David Lynch||||
|_The Bounty_|Roger Donaldson||||
|1985|_Maximum Overdrive_|Stephen King|||
|_Raw Deal_|John Irvin||||
|_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|||
|_Blue Velvet_|David Lynch||||
|_Tai-Pan_|Daryl Duke||||
|_Manhunter_|Michael Mann||||
|_King Kong Lives_|John Guillermin||||
|1987|_Hiding Out_|Bob Giraldi|||
|_Evil Dead 2_|Sam Raimi||||
|_The Bedroom Window_|Curtis Hanson||||
|1989|_Collision Course_|Lewis Teague|||
|_From the Hip_|Bob Clark||||
|1990|_Sometimes They Come Back_|Tom McLoughlin|||
|_Desperate Hours_|Michael Cimino||||
|1992|_Once Upon a Crime_|Eugene Levy|||
|_Kuffs_|Bruce A. Evans||||
|1993|_Body of Evidence_|Uli Edel|||
|_Army of Darkness_|Sam Raimi||||
|1994|_Temptation_|Strathford Hamilton|||
|1995|_Solomon & Sheba_|Robert Young|||
|_Slave of Dreams_|Robert Young||||
|_Rumpelstiltskin_|Mark Jones (I)||||
|_Assassins_|Richard Donner||||
|1996|_Unforgettable_|John Dahl|||
|_Bound_|Larry and Andy Wachowski||||
|1997|_Breakdown_|Jonathan Mostow|||
|2000|_U-571_|Jonathan Mostow|||
|2001|_Hannibal_|Ridley Scott|||
|2002|_Red Dragon_|Brett Ratner|||
|2006|_Hannibal Rising_|Peter Webber|||
|_The Last Legion_|Doug Lefler||||
|2007|_Virgin Territory_|David Leland|||

## Other websites

- Dino De Laurentiis Company  Official site

## Infobox (person)

- **name**: Dino De Laurentiis
- **birth name**: Agostino De Laurentiis
- **birth place**: Torre Annunziata, Campania, Italy
- **death place**: Los Angeles, California, United States
- **spouse**: Silvana Mangano
(m. 1949–1989, her death)
Martha Schumacher
(m. 1990–2010, his death)
- **image**: Dino de laurentiis crop.jpg