The funeral of Giovanna Cecchi, better known as Suso Cecchi D’Amico, one of Italy’s greatest screenwriters, took place at the “artists’ church” of Santa Maria del Popolo in Rome yesterday. She died on Saturday at the age of 96. At the service, director Franco Zeffirelli, speaking for other directors, said she had been “a mother to us all”.
Suso Cecchi d’Amico was the daughter of the author and critic Emilio Cecchi and the painter Leonarda Pieraccini. Her husband was the musicologist Fedele D’Amico, with whom she had three children.
She began screenwriting after World War II and among the famous films she worked on are Rossellini’s “Roma, Città Libera” [ “Rome, Open City”] and Vittorio De Sica’s “Ladri di Biciclette” [“Bicycle Thieves”]. She also worked with Antonioni, Fellini and Monicelli but Luchino Visconti was regarded as her “soulmate”. With Visconti she worked on “Bellissima”, “Senso” and “Il Gattopardo” [“The Leopard”]. Franco Zeffirelli told ANSA that she had brought a Catholic perspective to the screenwriting of “Jesus of Nazareth” and that she had been an “extraordinary screenwriter”.
Suso Cecchi D’Amico’s filmography on Wikipedia lists over 100 films but, shunning the spotlight, she never claimed credit for being “script doctor “ on “Roman Holiday” in 1953.
Christian De Sica, son of Vittorio, said that she had belonged to a “golden generation” of screenwriters:
“Today there are many good actors but very few screenwriters of their calibre.”
After the funeral her son said that his mother had always preferred being among friends to being in the spotlight and that she had been among friends at the service.
Suso Cecchi D’Amico, 21.7.1914 – 31.7.2010.
