Suso, stage name of Giovanna Cecchi, was born in Rome on 21th July 1914 to Emilio, a writer and literary critic, and Leonetta Pieraccini, a painter.

After his high school studies, he spent time in Switzerland and England, where he was able to deepen and perfect his knowledge of foreign languages and English in particular.

In 1938, she married Fedele D’amico, a musicologist and son of the well-known theatre critic Silvio D’Amico, by whom she had three children.

After the Second World War, he began to collaborate with his father on the translation of some plays. But his debut in the film world came with the screenplay for a film that never saw the light of day, Avatar, based on a story by Théophile Gautier, which he worked on together with his friends Alberto Moravia, Ennio Flaiano and Renato Castellani.

Despite the uncertain start, Cecchi D’Amico realised highly successful projects within a few years. Among many, L’onorevole Angelina (1947), written together with Piero Tellini for the direction of Luigi Zampa and, in the same year, Vivere in pace, which won her the Nastro d’argento as best subject.

He collaborated with the most influential exponents of Italian neo-realism. One of her most emblematic works is the film Ladri di biciclette (1948), written with Cesare Zavattini for Vittorio De Sica, in which she was the creator of the very famous final scene. He won, again, a Nastro d’argento for best screenplay.

From the 1950s onwards, there were numerous collaborations with well-known personalities of Italian cinema, including Luigi Comencini, Vittorio Gassmann, Mario Monicelli, Franco Zeffirelli, etc. But it was particularly with Luchino Visconti that he formed a strong artistic partnership. The latter, in fact, entrusted her with the screenplay of almost all his films, including Bellissima (1951), written for Anna Magnani, to whom Cecchi D’Amico was bound by a deep friendship.

Among the merits that are jointly acknowledged to this day is her ability to penetrate the psychology of characters and to transpose it into scripts that were always attentive to the needs and personal style of each of the many directors with whom she collaborated, thus managing to produce scripts with great heterogeneity, in which comedy and drama coexisted with a peculiar harmony, becoming her hallmark.

In 1994, she was awarded the Leone d’oro for Lifetime Achievement at the Venice Film Festival.

Suso Cecchi D’Amico died in Rome on 31th July 2010.

You can consult the birth certificate on the Ancestors Portal: Archivio di Stato di Roma, Stato civile italiano, Roma, 1914

The original is kept at the State Archives of Rome.

For more on the figure of Suso Cecchi D’Amico, see the Enciclopedia del Cinema entry edited by Marco Pistoia.