Benedict Fitzgerald, Co-Screenwriter with Mel Gibson, Dead at 74

Benedict Fitzgerald is no more.

The writers cousin Nancy Ritter told Variety that the co-screenwriter of The Passion of the Christ passed away in Marsala, Sicily, on January 17, following a protracted illness. He was 74.

Fitzgerald and producer/director Mel Gibson co-wrote The Passion of the Christ in 2004. The biblical epic is still the all-time highest-grossing independent picture.

Fitzgerald and his brother Michael co-wrote the film adaptation of Flannery O'Connor's novel Wise Blood, for which Fitzgerald first won praise.

Brad Dourif, Harry Dean Stanton, and Ned Beatty starred in the John Huston-directed movie, which was produced by Michael and Kathy Fitzgerald.

Fitzgerald was born in New York on March 9, 1949. Her parents were Robert and Sally Fitzgerald, a poet and translator whose translations of Virgil, Sophocles, and Homer are still regarded as canonical, and Flannery O'Connor, who edited The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O'Connor.

Fitzgerald attended boarding school in Rhode Island and graduated from Harvard University in 1972, despite having grown up in Italy. In 1991, he wed Karen Mason.

Fitzgerald is survived by his siblings Ughetta, Maria, Michael, Barnaby, and Caterina; his wife Mason; daughters Eugenie, Helena, and Olimpia; and three grandkids.