‘The Passion of the Christ’ screenwriter Benedict Fitzgerald dead at 74

Benedict Fitzgerald, best known for co-writing Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ, has died on Wednesday, January 17, at age 74.

The writer’s cousin, Nancy Morgan Ritter, told The Hollywood Reporter that Fitzgerald died after a long illness at his home in Marsala, Sicily.

Fitzgerald earned his first accolade for screenplay adaptation of Flannery O’Connor’s novel, Wise Blood, cowritten with his brother, Michael. The film, produced in 1979 by Michael and Kathy Fitzgerald and directed by John Huston, starred Brad Dourif, Harry Dean Stanton, and Ned Beatty.

The son of renowned poet Robert Fitzgerald, was mostly focused on literary adaptations. His next screenplay came in 1993 with a television movie adaptation of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness that starred Tim Roth as Marlow and John Malkovich as Kurtz.

He was the writer of Zelda, a television movie starring Natasha Richardson and Timothy Hutton, that told the story of the relationship between author F. Scott Fitzgerald and his wife Zelda.

Fitzgerald’s most famous work came in 1999 when he was approached by Mel Gibon to write the script for The Passion of the Christ.

Released independently through Icon in February 2004, The Passion of the Christ would become a global box office phenomenon, grossing over $600 million from a $30 million budget.

He is survived by his wife Karen, daughters Eugenie, Helena and Olimpia and three grandchildren, as well as siblings Ughetta, Maria, Michael, Barnaby and Caterina.