Biography
Leopoldo Trieste was a produced playwright and army veteran by the time he was cast in Federico Fellini's solo directorial debut, 1952's "The White Sheik." The film, in which Trieste, the provincial husband, is jilted by his new bride in favor of a soap opera actor, served as a launching pad for Trieste's acting career. He next appeared as an aspiring playwright in Fellini's critically acclaimed "I Vitteloni," about the small-town lives of a group of friends. Soon thereafter he landed steady work in films like the World War I-based romantic drama "A Farewell to Arms" and the "A Day for Lionhearts," about the true story of four young Italian students who bombed an important German stronghold in Italy. In 1961, Trieste was cast as an unwitting philanderer in "Divorce, Italian Style," Pietro Germi's award-winning comedy about the devious lengths an unhappy husband goes to in order to divorce his wife and marry his cousin. Trieste found limited success with his directorial efforts on the low-profile melodramas "City By Night" and "The Sin of the Green Years"--he re-teamed with Germi in the 1964 comedy "Seduced and Abandoned" as an overbearing baron swept up in a shotgun wedding. Trieste later appeared with a small cameo in "The Godfather Part II" during a pivotal flashback, and he portrayed an eccentric priest in the childhood fantasy "Cinema Paradiso."
