Pinelli, Tullio

(1908-)

   Playwright and screenwriter. After graduating in jurisprudence, Pinelli alternated between practicing as a lawyer and writing plays, becoming, by the early 1940s, one of Italy's most respected contemporary playwrights. At this time he also began working as a screenwriter, one of his first efforts being the screenplay of Mario Bonnard's Campo de' Fiori (Peddler and the Lady, 1943), which he cowrote with Federico Fellini.

   In the immediate postwar period, Pinelli collaborated extensively with Alberto Lattuada, helping to write Il bandito (The Bandit, 1946), Senza pieta (Without Pity, 1948), and Il Mulino del Po (The Mill on the Po, 1948) and worked with Pietro Germi on In nome della legge (In the Name of the Law, 1949) and Il cammino della speranza (Path of Hope, 1950) before collaborating with both Fellini and Lattuada on Luci del varieta (Variety Lights, 1950). From then on, usually together with Ennio Flaiano, he was Fellini's regular screenwriter on all the latter's major films up to Giulietta degli spiriti (Juliet of the Spirits, 1965), which included La dolce vita (1960), for which he shared an Oscar nomination for Best Screenplay and a Nastro d'argento for Best Original Story, a success repeated with Otto e mezzo (8'A, 1963). After a number of years away from Fellini, during which he worked again with Pietro Germi as well as with Antonio Pietrangeli, Liliana Cavani, and Mario Monicelli, he returned to write Fellini's last two films, Ginger e Fred (Ginger and Fred, 1986) and La voce della luna (The Voice of the Moon, 1990). He subsequently retired from screenwriting but in 1998 published his first novel, La casa di Robespierre (Robespierre's House).