END OF AN ERA

Italian producer DINO DE LAURENTIIS died early Thursday morning in Los Angeles at age 91.
He began as a film producer in Italy in the early 1940s and after shifting his operations to Los Angeles a few decades ago.
At the 2000 Oscars, he won the Irving Thalberg Award, annually given to "a creative producer whose body of work reflects a consistently high quality of motion picture production.

(1954 "La Strada)

In the post-war era, Italian film became an artistic and commercial force around the world, and De Laurentiis worked on some of the key films from this period, including two Federico Fellini classics, the 1954 "La Strada, " 1957's "Nights of Cabiria,and Mario Brava's, "Danger: Diabolik," 1968."
He also worked on such international co-productions as "Ulysses" (1954) with Kirk Douglas and King Vidor's "War and Peace" (1956).

(Danger: Diabolik, 1968)


(1968, Barbarella)

Along the way, he produced or exec produced numerous other pics, including the 1968 "Barbarella"; "Serpico" (1973); , "Deathwish," (1974)"Three Days of the Condor" (1975); the 1976 remake of "King Kong," starring Jessica Lange and Jeff Bridges; "Ragetime", (1981) "Firestarter" (1984), and the high-profile 1984 "Dune," directed by David Lynch, and of course,
"Blue Velvet," (1985).


(1976 remake of "King Kong)


( "Firestarter" 1984)

(FIRESTARTER with drew barrymore)


(1984 "Dune," )


(Blue Velvet,1985)

in later years he produced everything from, my bondage favorite- "Kuffs,"(1992), Body of Evidence, (1992) with madonna in her pathetic, camp classic, to Wachowski Bros, "Bound," (1996).


(Kuffs,1992)


(Body of Evidence, 1992)


(Bound,1996)

DINO was legend in filmmaking. his passing marks yet another,
"end of an era." he will never be replaced.