Dario Argento was born on September 7, 1940 in Rome, Italy. The first born son of famed Italian producer Salvatore Argento and Brazilian fashion model Elda Luxardo. Argento recalls getting his ideas for film making from his close knit family from Italian folk tales told by his parents and other family members including an aunt who told him frighting bedtime stories. Argento based most of his thril ...
show all Dario Argento was born on September 7, 1940 in Rome, Italy. The first born son of famed Italian producer Salvatore Argento and Brazilian fashion model Elda Luxardo. Argento recalls getting his ideas for film making from his close knit family from Italian folk tales told by his parents and other family members including an aunt who told him frighting bedtime stories. Argento based most of his thriller movies on childhood trauma, yet his own, acording to him, was a normal one. Along with tales spun by his aunt, Argento was impressed by stories from The Grimm Brothers, Hans Christian Andersen , and Edgar Allan Poe. Argento started his career writing for various film journal magazines while still in his teens attending a Catholic high school. After graduation, instead of going to college, Argento took a job as a columnist for a roman evening newspaper, Paese Sera. Inspired by the movies, Argento later found work as a screenwriter and wrote several screenplays for a number of films, but the most important were his Western colaborations, which included "Une corde, un Colt (1969)", and the Sergio Leone masterpiece "C'era una volta il West (1968)". After its release Argento wrote and directed his first movie, "Uccello dalle piume di cristallo, L' (1970)" a loose adoption on Frederick Brown's novel "The Screaming Mimi", which was made for his father's film company. Argento wanted to direct the movie himself because he did not want any other director messing up with the production and his screenplay.
After "The Bird With the Crystal Plumage" became an international hit, Argento followed up with two more thrillers, "Gatto a nove code, Il (1971)" and "4 mosche di velluto grigio (1971)", both of them were backed by his father Salvatore. Argento then directed the TV drama "Testimone oculare (1973) (TV)" and the historical TV drama "Cinque giornate, Le (1973)". Argento then went back to directing the so-called "giallo" thrillers starting with "Profondo rosso (1975)", a violent mystery-thriller with inspired a number of international directors with the thriller-horror genre. His next work was "Suspiria (1977)" which was inspired by the Gothic fairy tales of Grimm and Andersen which were collaborated by his girlfriend, screenwriter/actress Daria Nicolodi, who acted in "Profondo Rosso" ("Deep Red") and most of Argento's films from then on to the late 1980s. Argento advanced the unfinished trilogy with "Inferno (1980)", before returning to the "giallo" thrillers with "Tenebre (1982)", and then with "Phenomena (1985)".
The lukewarm reviews caused Argento to slip away from directing to producing and co-writing two Lamberto Bava horror flicks "Demoni (1985)" and "Demoni 2 (1986)". Argento returned to directing with the "giallo" thriller "Opera (1987)", which according to him was "a very unpleasant experience". A number of technical problems happened which delayed production, the lead actress Vanessa Redgrave dropped out before filming was to begin, Argento's father Salvatore died during filming, and his long-term girlfriend Daria broke off their relationship. After the commercial box-office failure of "Opera", Dario Argento temporarily settled in the USA where he colaborated with director George A. Romero with the two-part horror-thriller "Due occhi diabolici (1990)". Argento had previously colaborated with Romero on the horror action thriller "Dawn of the Dead (1978)". While still living in America, Argento acted in small movie roles and directed another violent mystery thriller "Trauma (1993)" which starred his youngest daughter Asia Argento from his long-term relationship with Daria Nicolodi. Argento returned to Italy in 1996 where he made a comeback to the horror genre with "Sindrome di Stendhal, La (1996)" and then by another version of "Fantasma dell'opera, Il (1998)" (Phantom of the Opera) both of which starred Asia. Most resently, Argento directed the thriller "Non ho sonno (2001)". His movies may be regarded by some as cheap and overly violent. But second or third vewings reguard him as a talented writer/director with a penchant for original ideas and creative directing.
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