'The Missing Piece: The Truth About Vincenzo Peruggia and the Unthinkable Theft of the Mona Lisa" is an upcoming doc by "Tonight Show with Jay Leno" headwriter Joe Medeiros, chronicling his 33-year search into the historical facts surrounding the man who, in 1911, stole the most famous painting in the world.
Medeiros’ passion for the crime began in 1976 when he read about the theft in a book. He attempted to write his own version of the events, but unwilling to invent things about Peruggia of whom little is known."I wanted the truth of who he was", said Medeiros, “What he was thinking and why he did what he did.”
But finding the truth of a 100-year-old story proved elusive.
“Much of the information about Peruggia is incomplete, conflicting, or just plain wrong," said Medeiros.
In February 2008, Medeiros and his wife Justine traveled to Italy with a crew to talk with Peruggia’s 84-year-old daughter Celestina about her father’s life, then followed the story to Paris, London and Florence in search of the answers that both he and Celestina hoped would close the book on her father’s crime.The crew filmed in places where Peruggia lived, worked and died including the room in Paris where he kept the painting for nearly 2 1/2 years, the hotel in Florence where he brought the painting and his gravesite in a cemetery on the outskirts of Paris.
Medeiros and his crew also filmed in the Louvre with Peruggia’s grandson Silvio, retracing his grandfather's steps through the museum and in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence where the Mona Lisa was displayed after its recovery in 1913.Medeiros then examined nearly one thousand documents from the French and Italian National Archives and the Archives of the Louvre, discovering facts/photographs never before published as well as interviewing leading experts on the theft along with relatives of the people involved, including Edmee Reit, widow of Seymour Reit, author of best-seller, "The Day They Stole The Mona Lisa".
"The Reit book is a wonderful tale," said Medeiros, “but it is based on a 1932 account by author Karl Decker which we are proving is just not true.".
Directed by Medeiros and produced by Midair Rose Productions, "The Missing Piece" will be released in 2010, in time for the 100-year anniversary of the theft...
