Tinto Brass, director of Caligula and Salon Kitty, dies at 93

Tinto Brass, the Italian director known for Caligula and Salon Kitty, died in Rome on 4 November 2026. He was 93. His family announced his death, The Hollywood Reporter said.

Brass began in the 1960s with avant-garde, or experimental, films before moving into erotic cinema. His work on Caligula became the center of a dispute over the screenplay and the editing of the released film.

From film archives to erotic cinema

Born Giovanni Brass in Milan on 26 March 1933, he grew up in Venice, earned a law degree and worked as an archivist at the Cinémathèque Française in Paris before becoming an assistant director. His feature debut, Who Works Is Lost, screened at the Venice International Film Festival in 1963.

His surrealist comedy The Howl (L’urlo), which he co-wrote and directed, competed at the Berlin International Film Festival in 1970. The Hollywood Reporter says it won the festival’s Golden Bear.

Salon Kitty (1976), an erotic war drama set in a Berlin brothel used by Nazi intelligence, brought Brass an international breakthrough, Variety said. He later directed The Key (1983), an adaptation of a novel by Tanizaki Junichiro.

The dispute over Caligula

Brass directed Caligula from a screenplay by Gore Vidal, with Penthouse magazine founder Bob Guccione as producer. Brass and Vidal clashed during production and both disowned the released film: Brass objected to editing done after he was fired, while Vidal objected to Brass rewriting his script, The Hollywood Reporter said.

Variety said Guccione added explicit footage shot after the main actors had finished filming. Deadline said Brass saw the additions as a betrayal of his original vision. The obituaries give different release chronologies: The Hollywood Reporter dates the film’s original release to 1979, while Variety says it was made in 1979, financed by Guccione in 1980 and released in a different cut in 1984.

The Hollywood Reporter said critics and audiences attacked the original release, but the film gained a cult following over the decades. In 2023, Caligula: The Ultimate Cut screened in Cannes Classics; Deadline said the re-edited version removed Guccione’s added scenes.

Family and funeral

Brass is survived by his wife, Caterina Varzi, and children, Bonifacio and Beatrice Brass. He married Varzi in 2017; his first marriage, to Carla Cipriani, lasted from 1957 until her death in 2006.

Varzi and the children announced his death to Italian news agency ANSA, which said the family currently plans a strictly private funeral ceremony.