Remembering the ever-impolitic movie producer

Image Credit: Keith Hamshere/Getty ImagesYou don’t make nearly 150 films over seven decades without ruffling a few feathers. And Dino De Laurentiis, who died last night at age 91 in his home in Beverly Hills, ruffled enough to stuff a king-sized mattress. Years ago, during auditions for Jessica Lange’s part in his 1976 remake of King Kong, he called Meryl Streep “a pig.” At least the producer had the courtesy to do it in Italian, even though it turned out Steep spoke the language fluently (“I’m very sorry that I disappoint you,” she shot back). When Jodie Foster declined to do a Silence of the Lambs sequel, De Laurentiis famously dismissed the actress who had won an Oscar playing Clarice Sterling as “not sexy” enough for the role. In 2006, this reporter personally witnessed De Laurentiis’ motivational techniques on the set of Hannibal Rising. The small old man with the big booming Italiano accent wobbled into the soundstage in the middle of a scene, banged his cane on a table, and shouted at the crew, “Film-a faster!”

Whatever works. And whatever else you can say about De Laurentiis, he produced some great movies, starting with Fellini’s early work in Italy in the 1950s, and moving on to iconic Hollywood productions like Barbarella in the 1960s and Death Wish and Serpico in the 1970s. He also made some not so great movies, like David Lynch’s 1984 adaptation of Dune, and Madonna’s 1993 thriller Body of Evidence. But De Laurentiis was always amusing, even if the films he made sometimes weren’t. “Submarina movies, they always make-a de money,” he said in 2000, right before the release of U-571, a submarine movie that didn’t. He was, in many ways, the prototype for the flamboyant, bombastic producer—without him, Harvey Weinstein and Joel Silver might not have been possible.

“Film-a faster!” would be a fitting epitaph on his tombstone.

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