Born in Colombo, Liguria, Italy. Of lower-middle-class origin, he worked as a messenger and briefly attended a nautical school before deciding on an acting career. He enrolled at Rome's Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia (C.S.C.), where he studied acting and directing, supporting himself as an extra, bit actor, assistant director, and sometime writer. Making his debut as a film director in 1945, he started out as a disciple of the neorealist school. His early films were typically social dramas, dealing in contemporary issues against Sicilian backgrounds. Gradually he shifted from social drama to satirical comedy with socio-moral overtones but retained as his favorite milieu Sicily and its ignorant, poverty-stricken people. In the 1960s he enjoyed worldwide commercial success with such films as DIVORCE - ITALIAN STYLE (1962) (Academy Award for script), SEDUCED AND ABANDONED (1964), and THE BIRDS, THE BEES AND THE ITALIANS (1966) (Grand Prize at Cannes Film Festival). He collaborated on the scripts of all his own films and appeared in some of them as an actor. He died of hepatitis.  Nominated for Directing 1962: DIVORCE - ITALIAN STYLE  Writing (Best Story and Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen) 1962: DIVORCE - ITALIAN STYLE (w. Ennio DeConcini & Alfredo Giannetti) 2 nominations, 1 Award