Biography

Giannetto De Rossi (8 August 1942 – 11 April 2021) was Italian makeup and special effects artist for motion pictures. His career included work for several high-profile directors, including Bernardo Bertolucci, Sergio Leone, Federico Fellini, Franco Zeffirelli, and David Lynch; as well as collaborations with cult horror filmmakers Lucio Fulci and Alexandre Aja. He was known particularly for his highly-detailed and realistic prosthetic appliances, most visible in his horror output. He was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Special Effects for the Oscar-winning The Last Emperor (1987).

One of his first special FX roles was as make-up artist for Joe D'Amato, whose film Emanuelle in America required detailed special FX for the notorious snuff film sequences. The gruesome effects produced by De Rossi, which included a woman's breasts being hacked off and multiple floggings, were so convincing that many thought them real snuff film scenes, and one actress complained that she had been traumatised by the effects.

Early in his career, De Rossi worked with a number of well-known Italian directors, including Sergio Leone and Federico Fellini. A particularly notable collaboration was with Lucio Fulci on his horror film Zombi 2. De Rossi also worked with Fulci in two other films: The Beyond and The House by the Cemetery.

Dino De Laurentiis hired De Rossi to create the on-set practical effects for two films in Mexico which he was producing, Dune and Conan the Destroyer. De Rossi created a number of memorable effects in the two films, including the fetus-shaped Spice Guild Navigator seen floating in a tank in Dune and the Dagoth monster suit worn by André the Giant in Conan the Destroyer.

In the late 1980s he created the special makeup effects on Rambo III. For the scene in which Rambo heals himself by igniting gunpowder inside of a torso bullet wound, De Rossi rigged a device which caused flame to burst from both Sylvester Stallone's stomach and back at once. Stallone was so impressed by De Rossi's work that he hired him again for the make-up effects for Daylight, which was shot in Rome and put Stallone's son Sage Stallone in contact with Lucio Fulci.

De Rossi created the title monster in the film Killer Crocodile, and directed the film's sequel, Killer Crocodile 2.

He is also notable as the designer of the mask used in the film The Man in the Iron Mask.

De Rossi continued creating FX for both Italian and American cinema, until his death on 11 April 2021 (coincidentally the same day as fellow Lucio Fulci collaborator Enzo Sciotti).

Source: Article "Giannetto De Rossi" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.