Vittorio De Sica

Vittorio De Sica 7 July 1901 – 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 (honorary), while Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow and Il giardino dei Finzi Contini won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. 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 Award. These two films 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.

De Sica was also nominated for the 1957 Oscar for Best Supporting Actor 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

He was born on 7 July 1901 in Sora, Lazio, the son of Neapolitan parents. Raised in poverty, De Sica 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 the screenwriter Cesare Zavattini was a very important event: together they created some of the most celebrated films of the neorealistic age, like Sciuscià (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).

Personal 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, as well as in General Della Rovere, a film directed by Rossellini in which De Sica played the title role.

In 1937 Vittorio De Sica married the actress Giuditta Rissone, who gave birth to their daughter, Emilia (Emi). In 1942, on the set of Un garibaldino al convento, he met Spanish actress María Mercader (cousin of Ramon Mercader, Leon Trotsky’s assassin), with whom he started a relationship. After divorcing Rissone in France in 1954, he married Mercader in 1959 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.

He was a Roman Catholic. 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 surgery due to lung cancer at the Neuilly-sur-Seine hospital in Paris.

Awards and nominations

Vittorio De Sica was given the Interfilm Grand Prix in 1971 by the Berlin International Film Festival.

• Miracolo a Milano
  • Cannes Film Festival Palme D’Or Winner
• Umberto D.
  • Cannes Film Festival Official Selection
• Stazione Termini
  • Cannes Film Festival Official Selection
• L’oro di Napoli
  • Cannes Film Festival Official Selection
• Il Tetto
  • Cannes Film Festival OCIC Award Winner
• Anna di Brooklyn
  • Berlin International Film Festival Official Selection
• La Ciociara
  • Cannes Film Festival Official Selection
• Matrimonio all’italiana
  • Moscow International Film Festival Official Selection
• Il Giardino dei Finzi-Contini
  • Berlin International Film Festival Golden Bear Winner
  • Berlin International Film Festival Interfilm Award Winner – Otto Dibelius Film Award
• Nastro d’Argento for Best Director 1946 for Sciuscià
• Academy Award 1947 Honorary Award to the Italian production for Sciuscià (Shoeshine)
• Academy Award 1949 Special Foreign Language Film Award for Bicycle Thieves
• BAFTA (British Academy Award) 1950 Best film Bicycle Thieves
• Academy Award 1965 Best Foreign Language film for Ieri, oggi, domani (Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow)
• Academy Award 1972 Best Foreign Language film for Il giardino dei Finzi-Contini

Filmography

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
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)	1960
Il Giudizio universale	The Last Judgment		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	1963
Matrimonio all’italiana	Marriage Italian-Style	Academy Award-nominee, Best Foreign Film, 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	1970
Le Coppie	The Couples	Short film – segment Il Leone	1970
Dal referendum alla costituzione: Il 2 giugno	From Referendum to the Constitution: 2 June	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

Filmography as actor

Note: on many sources, Fontana di Trevi by Carlo Campogalliani (1960) and La bonne soupe by Robert Thomas (1964) are included but de Sica does not appear in those films.

Television appearances as actor

• The Four Just Men, by Sapphire Films (1959) (10 of the 39 episodes made)