Benedict Fitzgerald, co-screenwriter of “The Ardour of the Christ,” died Jan. 17 in Marsala, Sicily, after an extended sickness, his cousin Nancy Ritter advised Selection. He was 74.

Fitzgerald co-wrote 2004’s “The Ardour of the Christ” with director and producer Mel Gibson. The biblical epic stays the highest-grossing impartial movie of all time.

Fitzgerald first acquired approval for his screenplay adaptation of the Flannery O’Connor novel “Clever Blood,” which he co-wrote together with his brother Michael. Michael and Kathy Fitzgerald produced the John Huston-directed movie, which starred Brad Dourif, Harry Dean Stanton and Ned Beatty. 

“Clever Blood” marked the start of Fitzgerald’s many literary variations, together with 1993’s “Zelda” with Natasha Richardson and Timothy Hutton, and Joseph Conrad’s “Coronary heart of Darkness” (1993), starring John Malkovich. He wrote the miniseries variations of Truman Capote’s “In Chilly Blood” (1996) and Herman Melville’s “Moby Dick” (1998), starring Patrick Stewart as Captain Ahab. Each collection had been nominated for a number of Emmy Awards.

Born March 9, 1949 in New York, Fitzgerald was the second baby of Sally Fitzgerald, recognized for modifying “The Behavior of Being: Letters of Flannery O’Connor,” and Robert Fitzgerald, a poet and translator whose translations of Homer, Virgil and Sophocles are thought of definitive to this present day. Although he was raised in Italy, Fitzgerald attended boarding faculty in Rhode Island and graduated from Harvard College in 1972. He married Karen Mason in 1991.

Fitzgerald is survived by his spouse Mason; daughters Eugenie, Helena and Olimpia; and three grandchildren, in addition to his siblings Ughetta, Maria, Michael, Barnaby and Caterina.