Andrea Purgatori

Andrea Purgatori (1 February 1953 – 19 July 2023) was an Italian journalist, writer, screenwriter, television presenter and occasional actor.

Life and career

Born in Rome, in 1974 Purgatori started his career as a journalist, and in 1976 he began a long collaboration with the newspaper Corriere della Sera, in which he served as an investigative journalist and a war correspondent. He later collaborated with other publications, including Le Monde diplomatique, The Huffington Post, Vanity Fair and L'Unità.

As a screenwriter Purgatori's credits include several Marco Risi's films, notably The Rubber Wall (1991), based on his own investigation about the Ustica affair, and Fort Apache Napoli (2010), about the murder of journalist Giancarlo Siani, as well as films by Giuliano Montaldo, Michele Placido, Carlo Verdone, Alessandro Di Robilant. He was also an occasional actor, mainly in projects involving comedian Corrado Guzzanti, with whom he also collaborated as a writer in a number of television and stage projects. In 2001, he received the prize "Archivio Disarmo - Golden Doves for Peace" from IRIAD.

From 2017, Purgatori wrote and hosted the program Atlantide on La7; in 2019, the program was awarded the Flaiano Prize for best cultural television show. In 2022, he appeared prominently in the Netflix documentary series Vatican Girl: The Disappearance of Emanuela Orlandi. He was also an essayist, and in 2019 he made his debut as a novelist with Quattro piccole ostriche.

An environmental activist, Purgatori served as president of the Italian branch of Greenpeace from 2014 to 2020. He died of cancer in Rome, on 19 July 2023, at the age of 70. Purgatori was the father of the actor Edoardo Purgatori and was a fan of the Serie A club A.S. Roma.

He considered himself a "dubious believer".