Sergio Leone

Born

1929

Died

1989

From

Rome, Lazio, Italy·Rome, Lazio, Italy

Height

1.73 m (5'8")

Also:
Assistant Director
Writer

Credits on file

Decades active

In short · Directed for nine decades — 73 credits.

Remembered for

Ranked by community engagement + sustained interest across this person's credits in our database.

Help complete this page

We’re missing one-line descriptor, birth date. Sign in to add what you know.

Biography

Sergio Leone was born into the film industry, the son of Roberto Roberti (also known as Vincenzo Leone), an early Italian cinema pioneer, and actress Bice Valerian. He began working in films during his late teens, serving as an assistant director to both Italian and American directors making Biblical and Roman epics in Italy, a popular genre at the time. By the late 1950s, he had started writing screenplays and directing, taking over *The Last Days of Pompeii* (1959) during production after its original director fell ill. His first solo feature, *The Colossus of Rhodes* (1961), was a standard Roman epic, but his second film, *A Fistful of Dollars* (1964), a direct remake of Akira Kurosawa's *Yojimbo* (1961), launched the Spaghetti Western genre and propelled TV actor Clint Eastwood to stardom (Leone had originally wanted Henry Fonda or Charles Bronson but could not afford them). The two sequels, *For a Few Dollars More* (1965) and *The Good, the Bad and the Ugly* (1966), were made with larger budgets and achieved even greater success. His later masterpiece, *Once Upon a Time in the West* (1968), which finally brought Fonda and Bronson into his fold, was heavily edited by Paramount Pictures and failed at the U.S. box office. He directed *Duck, You Sucker!* (1971) reluctantly, having originally hired Peter Bogdanovich as director but lost him before shooting began. He turned down offers to direct *The Godfather* (1972) in favor of his long-planned project, *Once Upon a Time in America* (1984). Leone died in 1989 while preparing an ambitious Soviet co-production about the World War II siege of Leningrad.