Remembering Leo Benvenuti

Leonardo Benvenuti was born on September 8, 1923 in Florence, Tuscany, Italy. In a career that spanned 50 years, screenwriter and director Benvenuti reflected a changing Italy, from the desolation of the postwar period to the country's growing prosperity, its political upheavals and the shifts in its moral codes.

 
The writer and director Carlo Verdone, who in recent years had worked with Leonardo on a series of comic films that are among Italy's biggest box office successes, described him as ''an author who with intelligence who was able to move us, make us laugh and make us reflect upon the vices and virtues of our country.''
 
His earliest film scripts included opulent studio productions and period pieces like dramatizations of the lives of Puccini and Verdi. He was to make his mark writing comic scripts, especially what became known as “commedia all'Italiana”. In these projects, he addressed important themes with a humorous but often bitter point of view.
 
Benvenuti wrote the screenplay for one Euro-western: “Find a Place to Die” (1968) using the alias Ralph Grave.