Alberto Grimaldi

Alberto Grimaldi is a fine example of a lawyer who become film producer. His first contacts with cinema were of a legal nature, but these slowly led to production. By the early 1960s he had created his company Produzioni Europee Associate (PEA), and was very successful when he distributed Joaquín Luis Romero Marchant's «La venganza del Zorro» (1962), the second European western shot in Almería, Spain, where Sergio Leone had also made his first western, «Per un pugno di dollari». The filmmaker was having trouble with his producers for its sequel, he sought legal advice, and met Grimaldi, who became the majority investor in «Per qualche dollaro in più». With the following success and a third western, Leone turned into one of the greatest European filmmakers and PEA became a significant production company. In 1967 another encounter and litigation diversified Grimaldi's profession. When Federico Fellini collapsed, after meeting many obstacles to do «Il viaggio di G. Mastorna» for producer Dino de Laurentiis, Grimaldi freed the maestro from the contract and produced him the short «Toby Dammit», for the film «Histoires extraordinaires». Thenceforth, while still producing more commercial films, Grimaldi became associated with several Italian filmmakers who also had artistic aspirations. He produced Gillo Pontecorvo's «Queimada», Elio Petri's «Un tranquillo posto di campagna», Pier Paolo Pasolini's 'Trilogy of Life' and «Salò o Le 120 giornate di Sodoma», Bernardo Bertolucci's «Ultimo tango a Parigi» and Francesco Rosi's «Cadaveri eccellenti»... In the 1970s Grimaldi had different setbacks and his production activities decreased. First, «Il Casanova di Federico Fellini» was a financial failure, and the «Novecento» proved too problematic, although the cast and production values were attractive for the international markets. Bertolucci proposed a cut of 375 minutes and wanted to release the film in two parts, but Grimaldi had to deliver a 195-minute version to Paramount for the American market. When the producer decided to make the contractual version without the filmmaker and they ended in court, Bertolucci finally agreed and made a 280-minute version, but for Twentieth Century Fox. Then, in the next decade Grimaldi and Leone were reunited for «Once Upon a Time in America», but fearing a five-hour film after reading the final script, he stepped back and impresario Arnon Milchan took charge. Grimaldi only produced Fellini's nostalgic comedy «Ginger and Fred» in the 1980s. Sixteen years passed until Grimaldi released a new production, when «Gangs of New York» opened in 2002. Under Martin Scorsese's direction, it was shot -like in the old times- in the Cinecittà studios in Rome, but it also had problems: a few months before shooting, Grimaldi sued Universal, Walt Disney, executive producer Michael Ovitz and other persons related to the film, claiming they had denied him the producer credit of a project he had planned for 20 years. In 2007 the Valladolid International Film Festival honored Grimaldi with a retrospective of his more significant films, and the book dedicated to his work «The Art of Producing with Success» by José María Otero and Paola Savino, was launched on the occasion. Alberto Grimaldi was also awarded for the body of his work by the Italian National Syndicate of Film Journalists.