Furio Scarpelli, a screenwriter who penned more than 120 Italian movies, including The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, has died. He was 90.

He died at his house in Rome shortly after midnight Wednesday, according to his son Matteo Scarpelli. He had been suffering from heart problems.

Scarpelli earned Oscar nominations for three of his films, 1994's Il Postino (The Postman), 1965's Casanova 70 and 1963's I Compagni.

He is best known for his partnership with fellow screenwriter Agenore Incrocci, called Age, with whom he wrote dozens of comedies for directors such as Dino Risi, Luigi Comencini, Pietro Germi, Mario Monicelli and Ettore Scola.

The pair are considered the inventors of commedia dell'italiana (Italian-style comedies) and wrote a series of films for the great comic actor known as Toto.

They are best known for writing the spaghetti western The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, directed by Sergio Leone and starring Clint Eastwood. It is known in part for its minimal, sardonic dialogue.

Age and Scarpelli were credited for their ear for everyday speech and ability to display Italian vices to humorous effect. They earned awards from Italian film journalists for films such as La Famiglia, Signore & Signori and I soliti ignoti, a bittersweet story involving a bungling group of small-time thieves that is widely considered a masterpiece.

Age died in 2005, but the duo stopped working together in the mid-1980s.

Each went on to independent film writing, with Scarpelli producing acclaimed films such as 2001's Concorrenza sleale for Scola and Il Postino, a fictional story about a postman who comes to love poetry through his relationship with Chilean poet Pablo Neruda. His last film was Christine Cristina in 2009.

Paolo Virzi, a director who worked with him in 2006 on N (Io e Napoleone), hailed Scarpelli as a father of Italian cinema and said he had the ability to see through people.

Scarpelli is survived by his wife and two sons. A funeral will be held Friday in Rome, his son said.