Bruno Corbucci

Italian writer-director Bruno Corbucci is best known in North America for his work on 1978's "Little Italy" and several other comedy films starring Tomás Milián as an irascible Rome police inspector Nico Giraldi. Born in that same city, Corbucci began his career as a writer, working on the miniseries "Il marziano Filippo" in 1956. After paying his dues on a variety of film projects, he finally got the chance to direct in 1965, starting off with "Questo pazzo, pazzo mondo della canzone," a musical comedy he also wrote. For much of his career, Corbucci worked mostly in the comedy realm. His 1971 film "Io non spezzo... rompo" for example was shown as part of a special presentation on Italian comedy at the 2010 Venice Film Festival. Corbucci wrote about three times as many films as he directed, with his final writing effort, "Cyberflic," released in theaters a year after his death in the fall of 1976. He was the younger brother of Sergio Corbucci, who wrote the spaghetti westerns "Django" and "The Great Silence."