Dino De Laurentiis, the prolific Italian film producer and entrepreneur, died Wednesday at his home in Beverly Hills, CA. He was 91.

Mr. De Laurentiis is best known for his career-defining work on many central films of the Italian New Wave in the late 1940s and 50s including the international success “Bitter Rice” (1949), and two of Frederico Fellini’s seminal works, “La Strada” (1954) and “Nights of Cabiria” (1957). His lengthy and impressive career, however, began well before that magical period and extended long after with films like David Lynch’s 1986 masterpiece, “Blue Velvet” among his finest achievements.

And though De Laurentiis managed to attach himself to many of cinema’s classics, the savvy businessman in him never shied away from pure fluff and entertainment like Sergio Corbucci’s “Goliath and the Vampires” (1961), Roger Vadim’s “Barbarella” (1968) and Richard Fleischer’s “Mandingo” (1975).

“A producer is not just a bookkeeper, or a banker, or a background. He makes the picture,” Mr. De Laurentiis told Cue magazine in 1962. “If the film is a failure, I am responsible. If it is a success, then it is the joint contribution of the actors, director, writers, set designers, musicians and script girl — everybody except the producer. This is a fact of life; I do not complain.”

Born Agostino De Laurentiis in Torre Annunziata, Naples, on Aug. 8, 1919, the third in a family of seven children.

He is survived by his wife, American-born producer Martha Schumacher, five daughters, three sisters, five grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren.