Marcello Mastroianni uncredited extra in "Marionette" (1939) when he was fourteen, and made intermittent minor film appearances until landing his first big role in "Atto d'accusa" (1951). Within a decade he became a major international celebrity, starring in "Big Deal on Madonna Street" (1958); and in Federico Fellini's "La Dolce Vita" opposite Anita Ekberg in 1960, where he played a disillusioned and self-loathing tabloid columnist who spends his days and nights exploring Rome's high society. Mastroianni followed "La Dolce Vita" with another signature role, that of a film director who, amidst self-doubt and troubled love affairs, finds himself in a creative block
La Dolce Vita Church as a parody of the second coming of Jesus, the opening scene and the film were condemned by the Vatican newspaper "L'Osservatore Romano" in 1960. Subject to widespread censorship, the film was banned in Spain, until the death of Franco in 1975. Umberto Tupini, the Minister of Culture of the Tambroni government censored it and other "shameful films". "The New York Times" described "La Dolce Vita" as "one of the most widely seen and acclaimed European movies of the 1960s". It was nominated for four Academy Awards, and won one for Best Costume Design: Black-and-White. "La Dolce Vita" also