Actor and film director, born in Sora, C Italy. He studied in Naples and Rome, established himself as a romantic star of Italian stage and screen in the 1930s, and became a director in 1940. He achieved international success in the neo-Realist style with Sciuscià (1946, Shoeshine), Ladri di biciclette (1948, Bicycle Thieves), and Miracolo a Milano (1951, Miracle in Milan). His subsequent work was more smoothly sophisticated, but Il giardino dei Finzi-Continis (1970, The Garden of the Finzi-Continis) provided a late triumph.