Sergio Leone was virtually born into the cinema - he was the son of Roberto Roberti (A.K.A. Vincenzo Leone), one of Italy's cinema pioneers, and actress Bice Valerian. Leone entered films in his late teens, working as an assistant director to both Italian directors and U.S. directors working in Italy (usually making Biblical and Roman epics, much in vogue at the time). Towards the end of the 1950s he started writing screenplays, and began directing after taking over Die letzten Tage von Pompeji (1959) in mid-shoot after its original director fell ill. His first solo feature, Der Koloß von Rhodos (1961), was a routine Roman epic, but his second feature, Für eine Handvoll Dollar (1964),
a shameless remake of Akira Kurosawa's Yojimbo - Der Leibwächter (1961), caused a revolution. It was the first Spaghetti Western, and shot T.V. cowboy Clint Eastwood to stardom (Leone wanted Henry Fonda or Charles Bronson but couldn't afford them). The two sequels, Für ein paar Dollar mehr (1965) and Zwei glorreiche Halunken (1966), were shot on much higher budgets and were even more successful, though his masterpiece, Spiel mir das Lied vom Tod (1968), in which Leone finally worked with Fonda and Bronson, was mutilated by Paramount Pictures and flopped at the U.S. box office. He directed Todesmelodie (1971) reluctantly (as producer he hired Peter Bogdanovich to direct but he left before shooting began), and turned down offers to direct Der Pate (1972) in favor of his dream project, which became Es war einmal in Amerika (1984). He died in 1989 after preparing an even more expensive Soviet co-production on the World War II siege of Leningrad.
