| Dario Argento was born in Rome, 7 September 1940; son of the film executive Salvatore Argento and Brazilian photographer Elda Luxardo. Long term partner of the actress Daria Nicolodi (separated c. 1985). Dario has two daughters, Fiore Argento (Phenomena, Demons), and Asia Argento (The Church, Trauma, Stendhal Syndrome).
He has been called the "Italian Hitchcock," and there is some basis for this comparison. Both he and Hitchcock are stylish filmmakers who rely heavily on storyboarding before filming and who exercise strong visual control over their work.
After an abortive start as a film critic for the Roman daily "Paese Sera", Argento started working as a scriptwriter, collaborating with Bernardo Bertolucci and director Sergio Leone on the writing of "Once Upon a Time in the West".
His directorial debut came in 1970 with "Birds with the Crystal Plumage", a tense and realistic thriller which achieved unexpected public success. The subsequent "The Cat o' Nine Tails", "Four Flies on Grey Velvet", "Five Days" and "Deep Red" confirmed Argento's visionary talent and contributed to a revival of the Italian horror marked by excess and violence. A turning point came with "Suspiria" in which the gradual eruption of horror and breakdown of narrative logic prepared the ground for the baroque fantasies and lirid neo-gothic delirium of "Inferno", "Tenebre/Unsane", "Phenomena/Creepers" and "Opera". Argento also worked as a producer for young Italian directors in the horror genre inspired by his example (Lamberto Bava, Michele Soavi) and helped his American friend George A. Romero, maker of "Dawn of the Dead", with whom he directed "Two Evil Eyes", a two-part film based on tales by Edgar Allan Poe (Argento's part was called "The Black Cat). With "Trauma", shot in the US with his daughter Asia in a starring role, he returned to the thriller atmosphere of his early films.
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