Italian film director Mario Monicelli kills himself (Roundup)

Nov 29, 2010, 22:51 GMT

Rome - Veteran Italian film director Mario Monicelli committed suicide Monday by leaping from a hospital balcony. He was 95.

Monicelli fell from the fifth floor of Rome's San Giovanni hospital where he had been recently admitted for treatment for prostrate cancer.

'The tragic death of Mario Monicelli leaves us all shocked and hurts us deeply,' said Renata Polverini the governor of the Lazio region which encompasses Rome.

Monicelli was widely considered the 'father' of the so-called Comedia all'italiana (Comedy Italian style) school of cinema which specialised in bitter-sweet story lines.

Some of his most celebrated films included the 1958 robbery caper I soliti ignoti (Big Deal on Madonna Street) starring two of Italian cinema's most famous leading men - Vittorio Gassman and Marcello Mastroianni, both of whose careers Monicelli helped launch.

Monicelli won the Venice Film Festival's Golden Lion top prize for 1959's La Grande Guerra (The Great War) which was also nominated for an Academy Award.

Born in Viareggio, Tuscany on May 15, 1915 - his father was a journalist who also committed suicide - Monicelli in his long career directed more than 60 films and worked with some of Italian cinema's greatest stars including Sophia Loren and Anna Magnani.

In 2006 he directed his last feature film, Roses of the Desert. The screenplay included a contribution by acclaimed Italian screenwriter Suso Cecchi D'Amico.

Paying homage to Cecchi D'Amico who died aged 96 in July, Monicelli said: 'Her passing leaves me feeling very lonely, but we have to bend to the passing years'.

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