Risi was an Italian director and screenwriter. Before entering the world of film he earned a degree in medicine and worked as a psychiatrist. He also wrote film reviews and in the early 1940s briefly worked as assistant director to Mario Soldato and Albert Lattuada. At the end of WW II he resided in Switzerland where he studied under the director Jacques Feyder. Upon his return to Italy he began making short documentaries and in the 1950s completely abandoned psychiatry in order to direct feature films. His first film was Poveri ma belli (1957), but he achieved real popularity in Italy with The Easy Life (Il sorpasso, 1962). Early on, he specialized in comedy and became one of the most important directors of Italian comedy. He was one of the first directors to cast Sophia Loren and Vittorio Gassman. In 1975, for the film Scent of a Woman (Profumo di Donna, 1974) he won the Italian film award David as Best Director. He made films Il mattatore (1960), A Difficult Life (Una vita difficile, 1961), March on Rome (La marcia su Roma, 1963), Treasure of San Gennaro (Operazione San Gennaro, 1966), he Tiger and the Pussycat (Il tigre, 1967), Vedo nudo (1969), The Priest's Wife (La moglie del prete, 1971), In the Name of the Italian People (In nome del popolo italiano, 1971), Lost Soul (Anima persa, 1977), Fantasma d'amore (1981). In the 1980s he began working on TV and the last film he directed and wrote the screenplay for was the TV film Le ragazze di Miss Italia (2002). In 2002, at the Venice Film Festival he was awarded with the lifetime achievement award.