Dino De Laurentiis, the Italian producer of nearly 150 films, including the likes of Barbarella, Flash Gordon and 1976's King Kong, has died.
To say that the man was a legend in his own lifetime is almost unfair bearing in mind his startling body of work. He worked on an incredible array of projects, straddling virtually every conceivable genre, from 1976's** Deathwish** to 1992's Red Dragon, taking in Waterloo, Army Of Darkness,** Serpico **and U-571 along the way.
The son of an Italian pastamaker, Dino worked his way up from humble propman to box-office producer of American smashes such as 2001's Hannibal at the age of 83.
He worked with a huge number of industry legends, from Fellini (in La Strada) to David Lynch (Dune), over the course of his working career, eventually winning lifetime achievement awards at the Venice Film Festival in 2003, as well as the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award in 2001.
He's survived by wife Martha and their four grandchildren.