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 films, 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' (1942), 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.' (1951), 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' 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' (1971), a powerful study of anti-Semitism in Fascist Italy, 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.
Father of Manuel De Sica and Christian De Sica. De Sica lived with his second wife, María Mercader, from 1942 on, but couldn't marry her until 1968 after acquiring French citizenship, which allowed him to finally divorce Giuditta Rissone, his first. Best known for his light earthy acting roles opposite Italy's most famous sex goddesses at the time: Gina Lollobrigida and Sophia Loren. De Sica continued to act in films in order to finance his own projects. He was a compulsive gambler Biography in: John Wakeman, editor. "World Film Directors, Volume One, 1890-1945". Pages 229-237. New York: The H.W. Wilson Company, 1987. His movies Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow, Marriage Italian-Style, The Garden of the Finzi-Continis were Oscar-nomiinated for "Best Foreign Language Film". Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow and The Garden of the Finzi-Continis won. The Bicycle Thief and Shoe-Shine received special Honarary Awards for their high and oustanding quality. Is portrayed by Edmund Purdom in Sophia Loren: Her Own Story