Vittorio De Sica (7 July 1901 or 1902–13 November 1974) was a critically acclaimed Italian neorealist director and actor.
Born into poverty in Sora (province of Frosinone), near Rome, in either 1901 or 1902 (sources are divided), he 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 Cesare Zavattini was a very important event: together they created some of the most celebrated films of the neorealistic age, like Sciuscià (Shoeshine) and Ladri di biciclette (The Bicycle Thieves, released as The Bicycle Thief in the U.S.A.), both of which de Sica directed.
One of his best-received films is La Ciociara (Two Women) (1961), based on the novel by Alberto Moravia: Sophia Loren won the Oscar for her performance, and critics widely regard the film a classic. De Sica died close to Paris in Neuilly-sur-Seine on 13 November 1974.
Vittorio De Sica was given the Interfilm Grand Prix in 1971 by the Berlin Film Festival
Note: on many sources, Fontana di Trevi by Carlo Campogalliani (1960) and La pappa reale by Robert Thomas (1964) are included but de Sica does not appear in those films.
