Franco Zeffirelli

Born: February 12 1923
Where: Florence, Tuscany, Italy

The former resistance figher and opera buff attracted international acclaim for his 1968 Oscar-nominated production of Romeo and Juliet.

The movie cast a 17-year-old Leonard Whiting and a 15-year-old Olivia Hussey in the lead roles and led to an Academy Award nomination for the director.

Other career highlights include 1967's Taming of the Shrew and the casting of Mel Gibson as a memorable Hamlet in 1990.

However, he has also directed less memorable American studio fare such as The Champ and Endless Love with Brooke Shields.

Zeffirelli's mother died when he was still a child and he was brought up by his aunt and her British companion who instilled a love of Shakespeare and opera into him.

As a teenager he fought with the partisans against the Italian fascists and when the war was over studied at the Beaux Arts Academy in Florence.

As studying architecture, Zeffirelli switched to acting in the stage productions of Luchino Visconti, then worked as an assistant on Visconti-directed films for a decade.

He subsequently launched a career designing, costuming, and directing operas, a an area of artistry he'd return to during his life.

As a director, he won his first credit for Swiss-produced dramatisation of La Boheme in 1967 but he made his name with Shakespeare.

His boisterous, non-traditional versions of the Bard included Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor in a racy adaptation of Taming of the Shrew in 1967.

After Romeo and Juliet he directed the richly visual Brother Sun/Sister Moon, a romanticized account of Francis of Assisi.

The Champ saw his less than successful switch to American studio productions which continued with Endless Love in 1981.

He fell foul of Christian protesters when advertisers withdrew from his TV mini-series Jesus of Nazareth after he promised a more human look at Christ (it went on to be seen by over a billion and a half people worldwide).

In 1990, Zeffirelli returned to Shakespeare for an all-star film version of Hamlet, starring a remarkably convincing Mel Gibson.

In 1996, he adapted Jane Eyre for the big screen and enjoyed a minor success with Tea With Mussolini.

Outside cinema, Zeffirelli is acknowledged as an equally adept theatre and opera director whose productions have featured Maria Callas, Luciano Pavarotti and Leonard Bernstein.

Highlights include Aida and Boheme at Milan's La Scala, Tosca, Turandot and Traviata at New York's Metropolitan Opera and Carmen in Verona.

In 2004, he returned to the big screen with Callas Forever, his fictionalised account of the last four months of the opera singer (and friend) Maria Callas.