Dario Argento

Dario Argento (; born 7 September 1940) is an Italian film director, screenwriter and producer. His influential work in the horror genre during the 1970s and 1980s, particularly in the subgenre known as giallo, has led him to being referred to as the "Master of the Thrill" and the "Master of Horror". His films as director include his "Animal Trilogy", consisting of The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1970), The Cat o' Nine Tails (1971) and Four Flies on Grey Velvet (1971); his "Three Mothers" trilogy, consisting of Suspiria (1977), Inferno (1980) and The Mother of Tears (2007); and his stand-alone films Deep Red (1975), Tenebrae (1982), Phenomena (1985) and Opera (1987). He co-wrote the screenplay for Sergio Leone's Once Upon a Time in the West (1968) and served as George A. Romero's script consultant on Dawn of the Dead (1978), for which he also composed the soundtrack with his long-time collaborators Goblin. Early life Argento was born in Rome, the son of a Sicilian film producer and executive Salvatore Argento (1914–1987) and a Brazilian photographer Elda Luxardo (1915–2013), who was of Italian ancestry. While still attending a Catholic secondary school as a teenager, Argento began working as a film critic, writing for magazines and as a columnist for the Rome-based newspaper Paese Sera While working at the newspaper, Argento also began working as a screenwriter. His most notable works were for Sergio Leone, Bernardo Bertolucci and his collaboration on the story for the Sergio Leone Spaghetti Western Once Upon a Time in the West in 1968.