De Sica, Vittorio

De Sica, Vittorio (1901-1974), Italian film actor and director. In the 1930s the charming and debonair De Sica was one of Italy's most popular film stars, playing the romantic lead in social comedies such as Mario Camerini's Men, What Scoundrels (1932) and Il Signor Max (1937). Around 1940 he turned to direction and in 1943 teamed up with writer and scriptwriter Cesare Zavattini to make I Bambini ci Guardano (The Children Are Watching Us), an important precursor of the Italian Neo-Realist movement. He and Zavattini were then jointly responsible for a number of the great classics of Neo-Realism, including Sciuscià (1946; Shoeshine), the acclaimed Ladri di Biciclette (1948; Bicycle Thieves), and Umberto D (1952). The powerful realism of these films had two components: acute social observation (due mainly to Zavattini) and superb direction of non-professional actors (due to De Sica). The commercial failure of Umberto D led De Sica to return to acting. Now silver-haired, he displayed all his traditional charm in the Luigi Comencini comedy Pane, Amore e Fantasia (1953; Bread, Love and Dreams) and in the Max Ophuls film Madame De... (1953; The Earrings of Madame De...), and then turned in a masterful performance as a petty criminal forced to masquerade as a general who has gone over to the Resistance in Il Generale della Rovere (1959) for Roberto Rossellini. Meanwhile, his directing career and collaboration with Zavattini continued with such films as the forceful La Ciociara (1960; Two Women; from the novel by Alberto Moravia) and the elegiac Il Giardino dei Finzi-Contini (1970; The Garden of the Finzi-Continis; from Giorgio Bassani), as well as with less distinguished productions. His last performance as an actor was in the affectionate tribute to Neo-Realism C'Eravamo Tanto Amati (We All Loved Each Other So Much), by Ettore Scola, released in 1975.