Italian director awarded honorary knighthood

Oscar-winning director Franco Zeffirelli has been awarded an honorary knighthood for his "valuable services to British performing arts".

11:58 25 November 2004

Oscar-winning director Franco Zeffirelli has been awarded an honorary knighthood for his "valuable services to British performing arts".

The man behind the 1968 Academy Award-winning Romeo and Juliet is the first Italian citizen to receive a KBE, which was presented to him at the British Embassy in Rome.

Zeffirelli joins a host of prestigious names from the art world in receiving the award, which stands for the Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire.

These include composer and German pianist Andre Previn, New York violinist Yehudi Menuhin, Steven Spielberg and Bob Hope.

"It's the greatest conquest, recognition, I have received in my life, practically," the 81-year-old said at his award ceremony.

"I can't believe it."

The director rose to prominence in the 1960s with his debut feature film The Taming of the Shrew, starring Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor.

More recent productions include Hamlet in 1990, starring Mel Gibson, Alan Bates and Glenn Close, and the 1999 film Tea with Mussolini.

Zeffirelli's latest film Forever Callas, starring Fanny Ardant as the opera diva Maria Callas, was released in the UK this month.