He turned to directing in 1940, making comedies in a similar
Vittorio De Sica grew up in Naples, and
started out as an office clerk in order to raise money to support his
poor family. He was increasingly drawn towards acting, and made his
screen debut while still in his teens, joining a stage company in 1923.
By the late 1920s he was a successful matinee idol of the Italian
theatre, and repeated that achievement in Italian movies, mostly light
comedies. He turned to directing in 1940, making comedies in a similar
vein, but with his fifth film
The Children Are Watching Us (1943),
he revealed hitherto unsuspected depths and an extraordinarily
sensitive touch with actors, especially children. It was also the first
film he made with the writer
Cesare Zavattini with whom he would
subsequently make Shoeshine (1946) and
Bicycle Thieves (1948),
heartbreaking studies of poverty in postwar Italy which won special
Oscars before the foreign film category was officially established.
After the box-office disaster of
Umberto D. (1952), a relentlessly
bleak study of the problems of old age, he returned to directing
lighter work, appearing in front of the camera more frequently.
Although
Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow (1963) won
him another Oscar, it was generally accepted that his career as one of
the great directors was over. However, just before he died he made
The Garden of the Finzi-Continis (1970),
which won him yet another Oscar, and his final film
A Brief Vacation (1973). He
died following the removal of a cyst from his lungs.