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.

## References
## Other websites
*Dino De Laurentiis Company  Official site
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