Mario Lanfranchi is an Italian film, theatre and television director, screenwriter, producer, collector and actor. After receiving a degree at the Drama Academy of Milan in the early 1950s, he was hired by Sergio Pugliese at RAI, at the onset of Italian television. He was the first to bring opera to the small screen, in 1956, with Madama Butterfly, by Giacomo Puccini, which introduced to a wide public Anna Moffo, at that time an unknown American soprano, who became his wife. In 1967 he began his career as a film director with the western movie Sentenza di morte. He lives in a 16th Century villa in Santa Maria del Piano outside Parma. 

June 30th, 1927 in Parma  /  Died:   Jan 3rd, 2022 - aged 94