Vittorio De Sica (7 July 1902 – 13 November 1974) was an Italian director and actor, a leading figure in the neorealist movement.

Four of the films he directed won Academy Awards: Sciuscià and Bicycle Thieves were awarded honorary Oscars, while ieri, oggi, domani and Il giardino dei Finzi Contini won the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar. Indeed, the great critical success of Sciuscià (the first foreign film to be so recognized by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences) and Bicycle Thieves helped establish the permanent Best Foreign Film Oscar. These two films generally are considered part of the canon of classic cinema. Bicycle Thieves was cited by Turner Classic Movies as one of the 15 most influential films in cinema history.

Ironically, for an artist considered one of the Italian cinema's greatest and most influential directors, De Sica's sole Academy Award nomination was for acting, when he received a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nod for playing Major Rinaldi in American director Charles Vidor's 1957 adaptation of Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms, a movie that was panned by critics and proved a box office flop. De Sica's acting was considered the highlight of the film.

 

Life and career

Born into poverty in Sora, Lazio ( 1902 ), he began his career as a theatre actor in the early 1920s and joined Tatiana Pavlova's theatre company in 1923. In 1933 he founded his own company with his wife Giuditta Rissone and Sergio Tofano. The company performed mostly light comedies, but they also staged plays by Beaumarchais and worked with famous directors like Luchino Visconti.

His meeting with Cesare Zavattini was a very important event: together they created some of the most celebrated films of the neorealistic age, likeSciuscià (Shoeshine) and Bicycle Thieves (released as The Bicycle Thief in America), both of which De Sica directed.

De Sica appeared in the British television series The Four Just Men (1959).

 

Private Life

His passion for gambling was well known. Because of it, he often lost large sums of money and accepted work that might not otherwise have interested him. He never kept his gambling a secret from anyone; in fact, he projected it on characters in his own movies, like Count Max (which he acted in but did not direct) and The Gold of Naples.

In 1937 he married Giuditta Rissone, whom he met ten years before and who gave birth to his daughter, Emi. In 1942, on the set of Un garibaldino al convento, he met Spanish actress Maria Mercader (sister of Ramon Mercader, Trotsky's assassin), with whom he started a relationship.

He was a Roman Catholic.

After divorcing Rissone in France in 1954, he married Mercader in 1959, again in Mexico, but this union was not considered valid under Italian law. In 1968 he obtained French citizenship and married Mercader in Paris. Meanwhile he had already had two sons with her: Manuel, in 1949, a musician, and Christian, in 1951, who would follow his father's path as an actor and director.

Although divorced, De Sica never parted from his first family. He led a double family life, with double celebrations on holidays. It is said that, at Christmas and on New Year's Eve, he used to put back the clocks by two hours in Mercader's house so that he could make a toast at midnight with both families. His first wife agreed to keep up the facade of a marriage so as not to leave her daughter without a father.

Vittorio De Sica died at 73 after a surgery at the Neuilly-sur-Seine hospital in Paris.

 

Filmography as director

Italian title English title Notes Released Rose scarlatte N/A Co-director 1940 Maddalena, zero in condotta Maddalena, Zero for Conduct   1940 Teresa Venerdì Do You Like Women, Doctor Beware   1941 Un garibaldino al convento A Garibaldian in the Convent   1942 I bambini ci guardano The Children Are Watching Us, The Little Martyr   1944 La porta del cielo The Gate of Heaven   1945 Sciuscià Shoeshine Academy Award-winner (Special Award); Academy Award nominee, Best Original Screenplay (Sergio Amidei, Adolfo Franci & Cesare Zavattini) 1946 Cuore Heart, Heart and Soul Co-director 1948 Ladri di biciclette Bicycle Thieves, The Bicycle Thief Academy Award-winner (Special Award); Academy Award nominee, Best Writing-Screenplay (Cesare Zavattini) 1948 Miracolo a Milano Miracle in Milan   1951 Umberto D. N/A Academy Award nominee, Best Writing-Story (Cesare Zavattini) 1952 Villa Borghese It Happened in the Park Co-director 1953 Stazione Termini Terminal Station, Station Terminus, Indiscretion of an American Wife   1953 L'oro di Napoli The Gold of Naples   1954 Il Tetto The Roof   1956 Anna di Brooklyn Anna of Brooklyn, Fast and Sexy Co-director 1958 La Ciociara Two Women Academy Award-winner, Best Actress (Sophia Loren) 1961 Il Giudizio universale The Last Judgement   1961 I sequestrati di Altona The Condemned of Altona   1962 Boccaccio '70 N/A Short film - segment La riffa 1962 Il Boom N/A   1963 Ieri, oggi e domani Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow Academy Award-winner, Best Foreign Film[6] 1963 Matrimonio all'italiana Marriage Italian-Style Academy Award-nominee, Best Foreign Film,[7] Best Actress (Sophia Loren) 1964 Un monde nouveau A New World   1966 Caccia alla volpe After the Fox   1966 Sette Volte Donna Woman Times Seven   1967 Le streghe The Witches Short film - segment Sera come le altre, Una 1967 Amanti A Place for Lovers   1968 I Girasoli Sunflower   1970 Il Giardino dei Finzi-Contini The Garden of the Finzi-Continis Academy Award-winner, Best Foreign Film[8] 1970 Le Coppie The Couples Short film - segment Il Leone 1970 Dal referendum alla costituzione: Il 2 giugno From Referendum to the Constitution: June 2 Documentary 1971 I Cavalieri di Malta The Knights of Malta Documentary 1971 Lo chiameremo Andrea We'll Call Him Andrea   1972 Una Breve vacanza A Brief Vacation   1973 Il viaggio The Voyage  

1974