Enzo Staiola Dead: Bicycle Thieves Child Star Was 85

Italian child actor Enzo Staiola, best known for playing, at the age of 9 years old, the sad-faced son Bruno Ricci in Vittorio De Sica’s 1948 Neo-realist masterpiece Ladri di Biciclette ( Bicycle Thieves ), has died. He was 85.

La Repubblica , the Italian newspaper, on Wednesday was first to report on the death of Staiola, who shot to international fame for his role in the Oscar-winning drama. No cause of death was given.

Staiola’s co-star in Bicycle Thieves in the role of Antonio Ricci, his impoverished father, was Lamberto Maggiorani, a factory worker-turned-actor, as De Sica wanted working class authenticity for his humanist drama. Antonio, with son in tow, in the film searches for a thief and his stolen bicycle, without which he cannot work and feed his young family.

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