Born in
Turin, Pinelli began his career as a civil lawyer but spent his free time working in the theatre as a playwright. He was descended from a long line of Italian patriots; his great-uncle General Ferdinando Pinelli quashed the bandit revolt in Calabria following Italian unification. He met Fellini in a Rome kiosk in 1946 while they were reading opposite pages of the same newspaper. "Meeting each other", explained Pinelli, "was a creative lightning bolt. We spoke the same language from the start... We were fantasizing about a screenplay that would be the exact opposite of what was fashionable then: the story of a very shy and modest office worker who discovered he can fly; so he flaps his arms and escapes out the window. It certainly wasn't
Italian neorealism. But the idea never went anywhere either." The anecdote about flying presages the opening scene of
8½ (1963) in which the protagonist, a prominent film director, who dreams of escape by flying out of his car caught in a traffic jam. Pinelli died at the age of 100 on 7 March 2009 in Rome. He was married (from 1988) to the French-born actress
Madeleine Lebeau, who had roles in
8½ and
Casablanca (1942). ==Selected filmography==