Legendary Producer Dino De Laurentiis Dead at 91

“When Jaws dies, nobody cries. When Kong dies, they all cry”. He produced over 500 and was nominated for 35 Oscars. He worked with Frederico Fellini (LA STRADA), David Lynch (DUNE), and Charles Bronson (THE WHITE BUFFALO) but Dino De Laurentiis may be best known to some  for that famous interview he did on the Tom Snyder show promoting his much-ballyhooed KING KONG remake in 1976, an interview spoofed on Saturday Night Live.

From The Hollywood Reporter:

Famed film producer Dino De Laurentiis, who was behind Serpico, War and Peace and Dune, has died. He was 91.

De Laurentiis, who has been making movies for nearly 70 years, passed away inside his Beverly Hills home, where lived with his third wife, Martha. He has six daughters; his only son, Federico, died in a 1981 plane crash. His granddaughter, Giada, is a chef on the Food Network.

“Cinema has lost one of its greats,” Rome Film Festival founder Walter Veltroni told the AFP. “The name of Dino De Laurentiis is tied to the history of cinema.”

De Laurentiis was born to pasta-maker parents on Aug. 8, 1919 in Torre Annunziata, which is near Naples, but moved to the U.S. in the 1960s.

De Laurentiis entered the film industry at age 20, and went on to produce more than 500 movies, including those by Federico Fellini, Roberto Rossellini…..

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