The giant, Dino De Laurentiis, has passed away...

Hey folks, Harry here... I'm here in Los Angeles doing some work in my film producing secret life, and as I wake for a busy day of meetings, I find that one of the men that made me want to do what I'm here to do, has passed away. I knew Dino de Laurentiis' name first, when I heard my parents talking about him remaking KING KONG in 1975. I remember seeing those gorgeous paintings of KING KONG for his production. You have to understand, as a little little boy, my parents showed me the original KING KONG on 16mm. We owned it. It was the best movie we owned, and I made them play it... ALOT. So when a remake of KING KONG was going on, as a small boy, I became obsessive. But - as I continued to age, I fell in love with his films... Like ORCA, FLASH GORDON, CONAN THE BARBARIAN, DUNE, CAT'S EYE, SILVER BULLET, MAXIMUM OVERDRIVE, MANHUNTER... You know the films. Once I became a cinephile, I discovered... Dino wasn't just a guy that made childhood genre favorites, before that shift in his career - Dino produced some of the greatest films by some of the greatest filmmakers of all time. Dino was one of the towers of Italian filmmaking. Not just working with Fellini on films like LA STRADA and NIGHTS OF CABIRIA... but working with Kirk Douglas in the Italian ULYSSES... making MARRIAGE ITALIAN STYLE... making the brilliant KISS THE GIRLS AND MAKE THEM DIE .... He made TONS of movies. I met him at Sitges at the premiere party for Brett Ratner's RED DRAGON... He was smoking his trademark cigar and was 10 times grander than even my imagination allowed. He was beautiful. The man I dreamt he was. The world is less colorful without him!