Light in the Piazza is a 1962 American romantic comedy drama film directed by Guy Green and starring Olivia de Havilland, Rossano Brazzi, Yvette Mimieux, George Hamilton, and Barry Sullivan.

Based on the 1960 novel The Light in the Piazza by Elizabeth Spencer, the film is about a beautiful but mentally disabled young American woman traveling in Italy with her mother and the Italian man they meet during one leg of their trip.

Distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Light in the Piazza features extensive location shooting in 1960s Florence and Rome by the cinematographer Otto Heller.

[2][3] While taking a summer holiday in Florence with her mother Meg, 26-year-old Clara Johnson, an American who was kicked in the head by a pony during childhood and now mentally disabled, meets and falls in love with a young Italian named Fabrizio Naccarelli.

On discovering how unhappy this has made Clara, she calls her tobacco executive husband Noel and asks him to fly to Rome to meet them.

There the couple discuss their daughter's future, and Noel reminds her that Clara's previous suitors have been repulsed as soon as they discover she is mentally disabled.

MGM purchased film rights in August and assigned it to producer Arthur Freed,[4] while the novel version of the story was published later that year.

George Hamilton campaigned actively for the role even though it had been cast and eventually succeeded, in part by persuading Ben Thau that he was suitable.