De Felitta began his career writing scripts for “The Whistler,” a weekly radio thriller. In addition to his son, Raymond, a film director, screenwriter and musician, he is survived by a daughter, Ivy-Eileen De Felitta, and a grandson. His mother was the former Genevieve Sibello.Īfter graduating from Theodore Roosevelt High School in the Bronx and serving as a pilot in the Army Air Forces during World War II, Mr. His father, Pasquale, was a painter who supervised the work at some of the city’s movie palaces. “I’m a pianist,” he said in an interview on Thursday, “and he was inspired to write because I was gifted at a young age.”įrank Paul De Felitta was born in the Bronx on Aug. Scott,Ī native of the Bronx, De Felitta served as a pilot during World War II, then wrote for the radio series The Whistler and for such TV anthology series as Tales of Tomorrow and Armstrong Circle Theatre.Raymond De Felitta, however, believes his father may have embellished the book’s origin a bit. (1972), with Oliver Reed and The Savage Is Loose (1974), featuring George C. Like Audrey Rose, they were horror thrillers as well.ĭe Felitta also wrote the films Anzio (1968), starring Robert Mitchum Z.P.G.

See More: Hollywood's Notable Deaths of 2016įrank De Felitta later wrote a novel and the screenplay for The Entity (1982), starring Barbara Hershey, and wrote and directed Scissors (1991), toplined by Sharon Stone.

He became a big believer in reincarnation.īut in a recent interview with The New York Times, Raymond De Felitta explained, 'I'm a pianist, and he was inspired to write because I was gifted at a young age.' Raymond said his fingers were doing it.'ĭe Felitta consulted an occultist, who told him that 'Raymond was one of those souls who had been through many lifetimes,' he said in the People story. 'We went in and there was Raymond at the piano, going like the devil,' he told People magazine in 1976.

De Felitta has said that Audrey Rose and its 1982 sequel were inspired by Raymond, then 6, whom he discovered playing ragtime music on a piano despite never having taken a lesson.

Audrey Rose by Frank De Felitta