Italian director Ettore Scola dead at 84

ROME (AP) - Ettore Scola, one of the last greats of Italian film, has died at age 84.

RAI state radio and the ANSA news agency say Scola died late Tuesday at a Rome hospital after falling ill on Sunday.

Scola, who started out as a screenwriter, won best director in 1976 at the Cannes Film Festival for "Brutti, Sporchi, Cattivi" ("Ugly, Dirty and Bad").

But he was perhaps best known for "We All Loved Each Other So Much," his 1977 tableau about post-war Italy, and the Oscar-nominated "A Special Day" featuring Marcello Mastroianni and Sophia Loren as neighbors who meet during Hitler's visit to Italy in 1938.

Premier Matteo Renzi said Scola had an incomparable way of reading Italian society and said in a tweet that his death "leaves an enormous hole in Italian culture."