Fernando Di Leo
Italian film director
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Fernando Di Leo (11 January 1932 – 1 December 2003)[1] was an Italian film director and script writer. He made 17 films as a director and about 50 scripts from 1964 to 1985.[2]
Fernando Di Leo | |
|---|---|
| |
| Born | 11 January 1932 San Ferdinando di Puglia, Italy |
| Died | 1 December 2003 (aged 71) Rome, Italy |
| Occupations | Film director, screenwriter |
Biography
Fernando Di Leo was born on 11 January 1932 in San Ferdinando di Puglia.[2] After briefly working in a Rome film school Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia, Di Leo made his debut as a director as part of the omnibus comedy Gli eroi di ieri, oggi, domani with his episode titled Un posto in paradiso (transl. A Place in Heaven).[3] Following this Di Leo wrote several scripts for Westerns, often uncredited.[3] This included work on A Fistful of Dollars and For a Few Dollars More.[3] Some of his Westerns had uncredited literary sources, such as Days of Vengeance which as loosely based on Alexandre Dumas' The Count of Monte Cristo.[3]
Di Leo was a fan of film noir and wanted to make an Italian version of these films.[3] Among his first efforts was the script for Mino Guerrini's Date for a Murder based on Franco Enna's novel Tempo di massacro written in 1955.[3] In Di Leo's version, the setting is moved to a contemporary Rome and has elements of contemporary spy films.[3] Di Leo worked with Guerrini again on the film Gangsters '70 which did not do well in the box office.[3] Di Leo began directing more of his own films at the time including the war film Red Roses for the Fuhrer and a few erotic films: A Woman on Fire, A Wrong Way to Love and Seduction.[3] From 1969 to 1976, di Leo was able to produce many of his own works with his production company Duania cineproduzioni 70.[2] He followed this with a return to noir with Naked Violence, a film adapting a novel by Giorgio Scerbanenco, a writer who Di Leo would adapt for several future film productions.[3]
Di Leo would make a giallo film with Slaughter Hotel starring Klaus Kinski and Margaret Lee.[3] Following this, Di Leo worked on Caliber 9 and The Italian Connection which were both inspired by the writing of Scerbanenco.[3] He followed up this film Il Boss, a film which got Di Leo in trouble with politicians and authorities due to the films display connections between the mafia and Italy's major party, Democrazia Cristiana.[3] Di Leo followed this up with Shoot First, Die Later in 1974.[3] Di Leo worked through the latter half of the 1970's directing Mister Scarface, Kidnap Syndicate, and Nick the Sting.[4] He also wrote scripts for other directors such as Romolo Guerrieri's Young, Violent, Dangerous and Ruggero Deodato's Live Like a Cop, Die Like a Man.[4] Di Leo's last film produced by his company Duania cineproduzioni 70 was Rulers of the City in 1976.[4] He continued with a few more films after with the film noir Blood and Diamonds, the erotic drama To Be Twenty - both in 1978, and Madness in 1980.[4]
Di Leo worked in television in the 1980's, starting with the television series L'assassino ha le ore contate, which involved six one-hour long made-for-TV films produced by RAI Uno which as of 2013 are unreleased.[4] Di Leo also made The Violent Breed and his last film Killer vs. Killers towards the mid-1980's.[4] Killer vs. Killers wasn't released theatrically in Italy and only surfaced 20 years later on DVD.[5]
Di Leo died in December 2003.[5]