Enzo Tortora
| Enzo Tortora | |
|---|---|
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| Member of Parliament for North-West Italy |
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In office 18 June 1984 – 18 June 1989 |
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| Personal details | |
| Born |
30 November 1928 Genoa, Kingdom of Italy |
| Died | 18 May 1988 (aged 59) Milan, Italy |
| Nationality | Italian |
| Political party | Radical Party (1984–1989) |
| Spouse(s) | Pasqualina Reillo (m. 1953–59); divorced |
| Alma mater | University of Genoa |
| Profession | TV host, politician |
| Religion | Roman Catholic |
Enzo Tortora (November 30, 1928 – May 18, 1988) was an Italian TV host on national RAI television, who was unjustly convicted of being a member of the Camorra and drug trafficking in 1985, and sentenced to 10 years in jail. He was acquitted of all charges on appeal in 1986.
Enzo Tortora was born in Genoa.
After taking a degree in journalism in his native city, he worked in theatre with Paolo Villaggio before joining the RAI – Italy's state radio and television corporation – as a radio announcer. In 1956, he first appeared on television and presented programmes such as Domenica Sportiva and Giochi senza frontiere. In 1969, he was fired by RAI when he described the company's managers as a group of boy scouts trying to pilot a supersonic jet plane unsuccessfully. Subsequently, he worked for several private TV stations and various newspapers, before returning to RAI in 1977.
During the seventies Enzo Tortora was the co-founder of Telebiella the first Italian free TV station that broke the state monopoly of TV broadcasting, and later of telealtomilanese and Antenna 3 Lombardia.
In 1977, Tortora started to present a programme called Portobello, which attracted an audience of up to 26 million people every Friday night, far outperforming any other programme. Named after the Portobello Road market in London, the show allowed the audience, via telephone from home, to buy or sell things, present ideas or inventions, or look for a partner or someone they had not seen for years. The challenge for those participating in the studio was to get Portobello, the green parrot and mascot of the show, to say his name. He rarely did.
In June 1983, he was arrested and held in jail for months after allegations by several pentiti of the Nuova Camorra Organizzata, such as Pasquale Barra, Giovanni Pandico and Giovanni Melluso. It was claimed that this was most likely a wrong identification with a man bearing the same surname, but the pentiti continued to accuse Tortora of offences related to cocaine dealing.
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