NEW YORK — He was a small man who dreamed big, hit the highest heights and failed like few others.

Dino De Laurentiis was born to be a movie producer.

The Academy Award-winning legend of the Italian New Wave and producer of “Serpico” and “Barbarella” who helped revolutionize the way movies are bankrolled and helped personify the no-limits life of a cinematic king, died Wednesday night at the age of 91 in Beverly Hills.

A public funeral service will be held Monday at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in downtown Los Angeles.

A statement released by the family late Friday encouraged guests to wear red instead of black to the 1:30 p.m. service because “Dino De Laurentiis did not want to be met with a sea of black at his funeral.”

His dozens of credits included the art-house classics “La Strada” and “Nights of Cabiria,” the Hollywood epics “War and Peace” and “The Bible,” and such mainstream hits as “Three Days of the Condor.” He backed the most far-out science fiction fused with sex and sexuality (“Barbarella”).

And when he bombed, he really bombed: “Dune,” about which director David Lynch complained he was denied creative control; the Madonna vehicle “Body of Evidence”; the 1976 remake of “King, Kong,” which nearly finished off the career of Jessica Lange before it really started.

The Oscar-winning “Serpico,” in 1973 with Al Pacino, was De Laurentiis’ Hollywood debut. Charles Bronson’s “Death Wish,” Robert Redford’s “Three Days of the Condor” and John Wayne’s last film, “The Shootist,” followed.

He often stayed loyal to young, talented directors, even though the results weren’t always strong. He made “Buffalo Bill and the Indians” with Robert Altman. Even after Michael Cimino’s huge flop “Heaven’s Gate,” De Laurentiis made “Year of the Dragon” and “Desperate Hours” with him. Despite the failure of “Dune,” he stuck with David Lynch and two years later produced the acclaimed “Blue Velvet.”

Though flops like “King Kong” and “Hurricane” could be shaken off, personal tragedy took its toll. In 1981, his son Federico was killed in a plane crash. Mangano, his wife of more than four decades, died in 1989.

De Laurentiis, close to 70, started over. Within two years, he had a new wife, 29-year-old Martha Schumacher, formed a new company and started producing moneymakers again.

“My philosophy is very simple,” he once said. “To feel young, you must work as long as you can.”