Dino De Laurentiis

Italian-American major film producer. He ran a studio with Carlo Ponti from 1950-57. They produced several of Italy's major postwar commercial and artistic successes, "Bitter Rice," 1948, "War and Peace," and "La Strada." He moved to the U.S. 1970 and became a naturalized American citizen 9/19/1986. He produced the remake of "King Kong," 1976. By January, 1988, his company was in debt $122 million to creditors, thanks in part to such flops as "Tai-Pan" and "King Kong Lives." Selling off its library of more than 350 movies and its 32-acre studio in North Carolina, his company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, 1988. He formed another company in February 1990. In 1988, De Laurentiis separated from Silvana Mangano after 39 years of marriage, three daughters and a son who died in a plane crash in 1981. Mangano died in mid-December 1989. In 1990 De Laurentiis married a much younger Martha Schumacher with whom he had two daughters. In 2001 he was awarded the Irving g. Thalberg Memorial Award for Lifetime Achievement. He is the grandfather of American celebrity chef Giada De Laurentiis. He died at age 91 on November 10, 2010 in Beverly Hills, CA. Link to Wikipedia biography