Leonardo Benvenuti, 77, Writer Of Classic Italian Screenplays
Elisabetta Povoledo www.nytimes.com elisabetta-povoledo
Leonardo Benvenuti, who wrote some 200 film scripts, including classics like Sergio Leone's Once Upon a Time in America and Vittorio De Sica's Marriage, Italian Style, dies at age 77; photo (M)
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Leonardo Benvenuti, who wrote some 200 film scripts, including classics like Sergio Leone's ''Once Upon a Time in America'' and Vittorio De Sica's ''Marriage, Italian Style,'' died on Friday in San Giacomo Hospital. He was 77.

The cause was complications after heart bypass surgery.

In a career that spanned 50 years, Mr. Benvenuti reflected a changing Italy, from the desolation of the postwar period to the country's growing prosperity, its political upheavals and the shifts in its moral codes.

The writer and director Carlo Verdone, who in recent years had worked with Mr. Benvenuti on a series of comic films that are among Italy's biggest box office successes, described him as ''an author who with intelligence was able to move us, make us laugh and make us reflect upon the vices and virtues of our country.''

Leonardo Benvenuti was born in Florence on Sept. 8, 1923. His earliest film scripts included opulent studio productions, period pieces like dramatizations of the lives of Puccini and Verdi. But he was to make his mark writing comic scripts, especially what became known as commedia all'Italiana. In these projects, he addressed important themes with a humorous but often bitter point of view.

For much of his life, Mr. Benvenuti was part of an indelible artistic partnership with another screenwriter, Piero De Bernardi, with whom he shared writing credits on almost all his projects. The list of directors for whom Mr. Benvenuti and Mr. De Bernardi wrote scripts reads like a syllabus for a college course on contemporary Italian cinema. It includes De Sica, Alberto Lattuada, Pietro Germi, Mario Monicelli, Luigi Comencini, Dino Risi, Carlo Vanzina and Lina Wertmuller.

The two men received numerous Italian cinema awards, including seven Silver Ribbons, given by the Italian National Syndicate of Film Journalists, and three Davids, the equivalents of the American Oscars.

Using the pseudonym Al Hine, Mr. Benvenuti was the executive producer of Peter Brook's ''Lord of the Flies.'' He also wrote under the names Leo Benvenuti and Ralph Grave, and acted in Ms. Wertmuller's 1999 film, ''Ferdinando e Carolina,'' and Ettore Scola's 1980 ''Terrazza,'' which he did not write.

Most recently he had worked with Mr. De Bernardi and Mr. Monicelli on television projects.

He is survived by his wife, Cristiana De Vita, and two sons, Roberto and Francesco.