Home › Franco Zeffirelli

Franco Zeffirelli

Franco Zeffirelli

Franco Zeffirelli in 1978.

Birth	12 February 1923 (1923-02-12) (87) Florence Italy
Nationality	Italian
Occupation (s)	Director , screenwriter , producer , actor
Notable Films	The Taming of the Shrew Romeo and Juliet Jesus of Nazareth

Franco Zeffirelli is a director , screenwriter , producer and actor Italian born on 12 February 1923 in Florence ( Italy ).

/ / Biography

Franco Zeffirelli began his artistic career as an assistant to Luchino Visconti's first theater and cinema for film La Terra Trema (The Earth Trembles) and Senso.

In the late 1950's , Zeffirelli launched a career as director-in-scene opera that spans several decades and led him to work regularly for La Scala of Milan and the Metropolitan Opera of New York. He runs including Maria Callas in La Traviata at Dallas in 1959 and Tosca in London in 1964. In 1966 , in New York , he inaugurated the opera house of Lincoln Center leading the creation of the opera Anthony and Cleopatra in Samuel Barber which he also wrote the libretto. The critical response was unanimously negative.

In 1967 , he directed a film adaptation of the play by Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. The film was a considerable success, which encourages them to adapt Romeo and Juliet the following year. The biggest success of the career of Zeffirelli 's Romeo and Juliet receives more than four Oscar nominations, including best director and best film.

During the 1970s , he directed two films of religious inspiration: Francis and the path of the sun (on the life of Saint Francis of Assisi ) and the miniseries Jesus of Nazareth in which British actor Robert Powell plays the role title in a particularly impressive distribution ( Laurence Olivier , Rod Steiger , Christopher Plummer and others).

He then went to the United States where he made Champion and Bounce , two melodramas coolly received by critics. During the 1980s he conducted operas filmed as La Traviata in 1982 and Othello in 1986. He returned to Shakespeare in 1990 with a version of Hamlet starring Mel Gibson in the title role and Helena Bonham Carter as Ophelia.