childhood trauma, yet his own--according to him--was a normal one.
Dario Argento was born on September 7, 1940, in Rome, Italy, the
first-born son of famed Italian producer
Salvatore Argento and Brazilian
fashion model Elda Luxardo. Argento recalls getting his ideas for
filmmaking from his close-knit family from Italian folk tales told by
his parents and other family members, including an aunt who told him
frighting bedtime stories. Argento based most of his thriller movies on
childhood trauma, yet his own--according to him--was a normal one.
Along with tales spun by his aunt, Argento was impressed by stories
from The Grimm Brothers,
Hans Christian Andersen and
Edgar Allan Poe. Argento started his
career writing for various film journal magazines while still in his
teens attending a Catholic high school. After graduation, instead of
going to college, Argento took a job as a columnist for the Rome daily
newspaper "Paese Sera". Inspired by the movies, he later found work as
a screenwriter and wrote several screenplays for a number of films, but
the most important were his western collaborations, which included
Cemetery Without Crosses (1969)
and the Sergio Leone masterpiece
Once Upon a Time in the West (1968).
After its release Argento wrote and directed his first movie,
The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1970),
which starred Tony Musante and and British
actress Suzy Kendall. It's a loose
adoption on Fredric Brown's novel "The
Screaming Mimi", which was made for his father's film company. Argento
wanted to direct the movie himself because he did not want any other
director messing up the production and his screenplay.