Carlo Ponti
Carlo Fortunato Pietro Ponti Sr. OMRI (11 December 1912 – 10 January 2007) was an Italian film producer with more than 140 productions to his credit. Along with Dino De Laurentiis, he is credited with reinvigorating and popularizing Italian cinema post-World War II, producing some of the country's most acclaimed and financially-successful films of the 1950s and 1960s.
Carlo Ponti OMRI | |
|---|---|
Ponti in 1951 | |
| Born | Carlo Fortunato Pietro Ponti 11 December 1912 Magenta, Lombardy, Kingdom of Italy |
| Died | 10 January 2007 (aged 94) Geneva, Switzerland |
| Alma mater | University of Milan |
| Spouses | Giuliana Fiastri
(m. 1946; div. 1965)Sophia Loren
(m. 1957; ann. 1962)
(m. 1966) |
| Children | 4; including Carlo Jr. and Edoardo |
| Honours | Order of Merit of the Italian Republic (1st Class) |
Ponti worked with many of the most important directors of Italian cinema of the era, including Federico Fellini, Michelangelo Antonioni, and Vittorio De Sica, as well as many international directors such as Agnès Varda and David Lean. He helped launch the career of his wife, international film star Sophia Loren. He won the Academy Award for Best Foreign-Language Film for La Strada (1954) and was nominated for Best Picture for producing Doctor Zhivago (1965). In 1996, he was appointed as a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic.