---
name: "Franco Zeffirelli"
canonical: "https://film.one/person/franco-zeffirelli"
roles: ["Director"]
born: "12 February 1923"
died: "15 June 2019"
reviewed_on_fi1m: 1
average_as: "director"
average_over: 1
updated: "2026-09-20T05:14:21.678731+00:00"
licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL."
---

# Franco Zeffirelli

Director. Born 12 February 1923 in Florence, Tuscany, Italy. Died 15 June 2019.

## Details

- **Work:** Director
- **Born:** 12 February 1923, Florence, Tuscany, Italy
- **Died:** 15 June 2019
- **Also known as:** Gianfranco Corsi
- **Academy Awards:** 2 Oscar nominations
- **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franco_Zeffirelli, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q53040, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001874/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/24657

## Fi1m on Franco Zeffirelli

> Zeffirelli filmed Shakespeare and opera as spectacle first: real Italian stone, heavy velvet, candles by the hundred and faces young enough to be rash. In *Romeo and Juliet* that is enough. Elsewhere, the decoration is often the whole idea.

Halfway through *Romeo and Juliet* (1968) a boy sings a ballad about youth passing at a Capulet party, and Franco Zeffirelli does the simplest thing available to him: he cuts between two faces finding each other across a hall full of candles. Lorenzo Mongiardino built the hall in dark wood, Danilo Donati put the guests in reds and golds heavy enough to sweat in, and Nino Rota wrote the tune. We did not expect to be moved by a scene we have seen played a dozen ways, and we were, because Olivia Hussey plays it as a girl who has just learnt something about herself and Leonard Whiting as a boy who has forgotten everything else. That is the method in one scene: dress the hall until you can smell the wax, put young faces in front of it, and trust them.

He came to it from two directions. He began as a scene painter and assistant to Luchino Visconti on *La Terra Trema* (1948) and *Senso* (1954), and from Visconti he took the habit of shooting in real streets with real dust on them. Then he spent the 1950s directing stage and opera, including Shakespeare at the Old Vic from 1960, and from the opera house he took the rest: the scale, the velvet, the crowd. *The Taming of the Shrew* (1967), with Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, was his first feature. *Romeo and Juliet* followed and made his name abroad, and after it came *Brother Sun, Sister Moon* (1972), the television *Jesus of Nazareth* (1977), a *Hamlet* (1990) with Mel Gibson and *Tea with Mussolini* (1999).

The idea in 1968 was the casting. He put teenagers in the leads because, as he said, "The teenagers of the play should be a lot like kids today... They don't want to get involved in their parents' hates and wars." Pasqualino De Santis, who shot two films with him, keeps the camera handheld and low in the opening brawl, so it plays as a riot rather than a fencing display, under light hard enough to make everyone squint. For an hour it is Shakespeare that moves like a film. Then the difficult scenes arrive and the verse pays for it: Whiting rushes the long speeches, Hussey leans on hers, the text has been cut too hard, and the second half slows to a crawl. Critics have said so since 1968 and they are right.

They have also said, of *Brother Sun, Sister Moon* and the opera films, that the decoration carries on after the thinking has stopped and the sentiment is laid on as thick as the candles. We have not reviewed those films and will not judge them here, but nothing in *Romeo and Juliet* argues against the charge. Zeffirelli believed a play could be made popular by making it beautiful and young, and he was often proved right, which is not the same as being proved deep. Watch the 1968 film for its first hour and its ball, and if the second half loses you, it lost us too.

## Biography

Franco Zeffirelli, born Gian Franco Corsi Zeffirelli, was an Italian director of films, opera and theatre. He was born in Florence on 12 February 1923 and died in Rome on 15 June 2019. He studied at the Accademia di Belle Arti Firenze and the University of Florence, and worked as an actor and assistant director with Luchino Visconti before beginning his own career in the 1950s.

Zeffirelli directed the Shakespeare film adaptations *The Taming of the Shrew* (1967) and *Romeo and Juliet* (1968), the latter earning him an Academy Award nomination for Best Director; he also directed the television miniseries *Jesus of Nazareth* (1977) and the film *Hamlet* (1990). He served as a senator for the Forza Italia party from 1994 to 2001.

He was appointed a Grande Ufficiale OMRI in 1977 and received an honorary British knighthood (KBE) in 2004. He was awarded the Premio Colosseo by the city of Rome in 2009.

*Sources: en.wikipedia.org, imdb.com, britannica.com.*

## On Fi1m (1)

- *Romeo and Juliet* (1968), Fi1m 75, Director, Screenplay — [page](https://film.one/film/romeo-and-juliet-1968.md)

## Complete filmography (73)

Every credit, newest first. Titles without a page can be requested for review on the HTML page.

- *The Metropolitan Opera: La Bohème* (2025), Stage Director, Director
- *Giacomo Puccini: Turandot* (2024), Stage Director
- *Georges Bizet: Carmen* (2022), Director
- *Turandot* (2022), Director
- *La Traviata* (2022), Stage Director, Production Design
- *Carmen aus der Arena von Verona* (2022), Director
- *The Metropolitan Opera: Turandot* (2022), Director
- *Arena di Verona: Il Trovatore* (2020), Director, Set Designer
- *La Bohème - Wiener Staatsoper* (2019), Director
- *The Metropolitan Opera: Turandot* (2019), Set Designer, Production Design, Director
- *La Traviata - Arena di Verona* (2019), Director
- *The Metropolitan Opera: La Bohème* (2018), Director, Production Design, Set Designer
- *Zeffirelli's Inferno* (2017), Director, Writer
- *Don Giovanni* (2015), Director
- *Carmen (Arena di Verona)* (2014), Director
- *The Metropolitan Opera: La Bohème* (2014), Production Design
- *Turandot - Puccini - Live from Verona* (2011), Director
- *Carmen* (2010), Director
- *Puccini: Turandot* (2009), Production Design
- *Puccini: La Bohème* (2008), Director, Stage Director
- *Verdi: Aida* (2006), Director
- *La Boheme* (2004), Director
- *Madama Butterfly* (2004), Director
- *Bizet: Carmen* (2003), Stage Director
- *Callas Forever* (2002), Director, Screenplay, Original Story
- *La Traviata* (2002), Director
- *Aida* (2001), Director
- *Don Giovanni* (2000), Production Design, Director
- *Tea with Mussolini* (1999), Director, Novel
- *Carmen* (1997), Director
- *Jane Eyre* (1996), Director, Screenplay
- *Sparrow* (1994), Director, Screenplay
- *Falstaff* (1993), Director, Production Design, Set Designer
- *Don Carlo* (1992), Director
- *The King of Ads* (1991), Director
- *Hamlet* (1990), Director, Screenplay
- *Don Giovanni* (1990), Production Design
- *12 Directors for 12 Cities* (1989), Director
- *Young Toscanini* (1988), Director, Original Story
- *Pagliacci* (1987), Director
- *Turandot* (1987), Production Design, Director
- *Otello* (1986), Director, Adaptation, Production Design
- *Tosca* (1985), Set Designer, Director
- *Television* (1985), series, Actor
- *La traviata* (1982), Director, Adaptation, Production Design
- *Cavalleria rusticana* (1982), Director
- *Puccini: La bohème* (1982), Director, Production Design, Set Designer
- *Endless Love* (1981), Director
- *The Champ* (1979), Director
- *La Bohème* (1979), Production Design, Director
- *Carmen* (1978), Director
- *Otello - The Met* (1978), Director
- *Callas: A Documentary* (1978), as Narrator
- *Cavalleria Rusticana/Pagliacci* (1978), Director
- *Lorenzaccio* (1977), Stage Director
- *Jesus of Nazareth* (1977), series, Director, Writer, Creator
- *Verdi: Otello* (1976), Stage Director
- *Who's Afraid of Opera?* (1972), series, Costume Designer
- *Brother Sun, Sister Moon* (1972), Director, Screenplay
- *Romeo and Juliet* (1968), Director, Screenplay — Fi1m 75, [page](https://film.one/film/romeo-and-juliet-1968.md)
- *The Taming of the Shrew* (1967), Screenplay, Producer, Director
- *Much Ado About Nothing* (1967), Stage Director
- *For Florence* (1966), Director
- *La Bohème - Teatro alla Scala* (1965), Director, Production Design
- *Maria Callas Sings Tosca, Act II* (1964), Director, Lighting Supervisor
- *Maria Callas: At Covent Garden, 1962 and 1964* (1962), Music Director, Stage Director
- *Camping* (1958), Director, Screenplay
- *The Bachelor* (1955), First Assistant Director
- *Senso* (1954), Assistant Director
- *Empty Eyes* (1953), First Assistant Director
- *Bellissima* (1952), Assistant Director
- *La Terra Trema* (1949), Assistant Director
- *Angelina* (1947), as Filippo Garrone

## Gallery

- ![Franco Zeffirelli](https://film.one/media/person/1243403/gallery-f176384c263b.jpg) Franco Zeffirelli — Alexey Yushenkov, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8e/Zeffirelli_%28cropped%29.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled)
- ![Title: Franco Zeffirelli, director Creator(s): Gotfryd, Bernard, photographer Date Created/Published: [1972] Medium: 1 photograph : color transparency ; 35mm (s](https://film.one/media/person/1243403/gallery-b91c4474c1e8.jpg) Title: Franco Zeffirelli, director Creator(s): Gotfryd, Bernard, photographer Date Created/Published: [1972] Medium: 1 photograph : color transparency ; 35mm (s — Bernard Gotfryd, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/ae/Franco_Zeffirelli%2C_director%2C_1972.jpg/1280px-Franco_Zeffirelli%2C_director%2C_1972.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail)
- ![Paolo Petrocelli with Franco Zeffirelli (2022)](https://film.one/media/person/1243403/gallery-923b88ce3164.jpg) Paolo Petrocelli with Franco Zeffirelli (2022) — DiploCult, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e1/Paolo_Petrocelli_with_Franco_Zeffirelli.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled)
- ![A young Franco Zeffirelli in the 1950s](https://film.one/media/person/1243403/gallery-92b68650aa28.jpg) A young Franco Zeffirelli in the 1950s — Unknown authorUnknown author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b6/Giovane_zeffirelli.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled)
- ![Franco Zeffirelli](https://film.one/media/person/1243403/gallery-650c5ff4a9ef.jpg) Franco Zeffirelli — Image via TMDB
- ![Franco Zeffirelli](https://film.one/media/person/1243403/gallery-ae583fd6654d.jpg) Franco Zeffirelli — Image via TMDB
- ![Franco Zeffirelli](https://film.one/media/person/1243403/gallery-be9c7722ea44.jpg) Franco Zeffirelli — Image via TMDB
- ![Franco Zeffirelli](https://film.one/media/person/1243403/gallery-cbe251f5be17.jpg) Franco Zeffirelli — Pierluigi, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/eb/Franco-Zeffirelli-directing-actors-352030003307.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled)
- ![Leonard Whiting and Olivia Hussey are currently starring in Franco Zeffirelli's “Romeo and Juliet”, a Paramount release which co-stars Roberto Bisacco, Antonio  (1967)](https://film.one/media/person/1243403/gallery-0e4f8ea7ded7.jpg) Leonard Whiting and Olivia Hussey are currently starring in Franco Zeffirelli's “Romeo and Juliet”, a Paramount release which co-stars Roberto Bisacco, Antonio  (1967) — Emilio Lari, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6e/Franco-Zeffirelli-helping-Leonard-Whiting-wearing-a-mask-142353181657.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled)

## Awards

### Academy Awards — 0 won, 2 nominated

- 1983: Best Production Design (nominated), for *La Traviata*
- 1969: Best Director (nominated), for *Romeo and Juliet*

### Other awards — 6 won, 2 nominated

- Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire 2004: Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (won)
- Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres 1995: Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres (won)
- Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Director 1982: Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Director (nominated), for *Endless Love*
- David di Donatello for Best Director 1972: David di Donatello for Best Director (won), for *Brother Sun, Sister Moon*
- David di Donatello for Best Director 1969: David di Donatello for Best Director (won), for *Romeo and Juliet*
- Nastro d'Argento for the director of the best film 1969: Nastro d'Argento for the director of the best film (won), for *Romeo and Juliet*
- National Board of Review Award for Best Director 1968: National Board of Review Award for Best Director (won), for *Romeo and Juliet*
- Tony Award for Best Scenic Design 1963: Tony Award for Best Scenic Design (nominated)

*From Wikidata, which records wins more completely than nominations.*

---
© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/person/franco-zeffirelli