Antonio Pietrangeli
Antonio Pietrangeli (1919–1968) was an Italian film director and screenwriter and a major practitioner of commedia all'italiana, distinguished within the genre for a thoughtful focus on the evolving lives of women in post-war Italy. Born in Rome, he qualified as a doctor in 1945 but left medicine for cinema, first as a critic for Bianco e Nero and Cinema and then as a screenwriter on Visconti's Ossessione and La terra trema, Blasetti's Fabiola, and Rossellini's Europa '51. He made his directorial debut in 1953 with Empty Eyes, and his career highlights include Adua and Her Friends (1960) with Marcello Mastroianni and Simone Signoret, Ghosts of Rome (1961), and The Magnificent Cuckold (1964). He drowned in 1968 in the Gulf of Gaeta while shooting How, When and with Whom.