Piero Domenico Angela (Italian: [ˈpjɛːro ˈandʒela]; 22 December 1928 – 13 August 2022) was an Italian science journalist, television host, and essayist, with a brief early professional career also as a jazz musician and pianist. He started as a radio reporter, then became a foreign correspondent, and established himself as the host of the RAI newscast. He is best known as the creator and presenter of broadcasting programmes modelled on BBC and David Attenborough documentaries, to whom he has been often compared, and also for his scientific journalism published in numerous publications. Angela wrote thirty-three books, which sold over three million copies, received many honorary degrees, made over sixty documentaries and hundreds of television episodes, won seven Telegattos, and eight times won the national television directing award.
Early life Angela was born in Turin, the son of Nella Maglia and Carlo Angela, an anti-fascist doctor, who was awarded the Medal of the Righteous Among the Nations on 29 August 2001. At the age of one, Angela nearly died from pneumonia. Several years later, he had a broken leg reconstructed without anaesthesia and at the age of 12 underwent an appendicitis operation; the surgery went on for two and a half hours due to complications. Angela attended the classical high school in Turin. Angela wrote that rationality was taught to him by his father. According to his colleague Gigi Marzullo "his perfect self-control and his sympathetic friendliness is a reflection of his shy nature and encoded in the genetic code of this Piedmontese education in rationality and tolerance". Angela did well in almost all studies, but he did the minimum of work required. Angela said he received "a very Piedmontese education: very rigid, with very strict principles, including that of diffidence, never exhibiting". Angela wrote referring to his school education: "Personally, I got bored mortally in school and I was a bad student. All those involved in teaching should constantly remember the ancient Latin motto 'ludendo docere', that is, 'teach with fun'."
Music Individuals who are most successful (and not only women) are usually strong inside and courteous outside. It's a bit like the piano. I always remember what my old piano teacher used to say to me: to have a good touch you need steel fingers in velvet gloves ... Maybe in life it is like that. Angela began taking private piano lessons when he was seven years old; he later developed an interest in jazz music. By 1948, he played in various jam sessions in Turin jazz clubs using the name Peter Angela. In 1948 he was noticed by the then young entrepreneur Sergio Bernardini, who invited him to play on the opening night of the Capannina in Viareggio. By the early fifties Angela formed with drummer Franco Mondini and various double bass players a jazz trio. The trio was often joined by soloists, such as Nini Rosso, Franco Pisano, Nunzio Rotondo, and the former cornetist of Duke Ellington, Rex Stewart. Angela and Mondini played with Nunzio Rotondo's quartet for some time. He also played at this time with Franco Cerri, with whom in 1946, they would ride their bicycles to hear the concerts from outside of a Turin restaurant because they were unable to buy tickets.
Journalism
At the end of 1951, Angela began collaborating on a programme on the history of jazz for RAI. By 1952 he stopped playing music and began working full time as a journalist. First as a reporter and contributor. Angela has spent nine years in Paris, four years in Brussels as a correspondent and toured America as a correspondent for RAI. His wife, Margherita Pastore, gave up her career as a dancer, married Piero when she was 19, and went with Angela to Paris. According to Margherita, "We didn't make a decision, but the strange thing that you have inside and that makes you act sometimes not completely rationally, but beautifully. That same thing that had already bewitched us at first glance, during a birthday party in the home of mutual friends." While in Paris their daughter, Christine, and son, Alberto, were born. Angela had an audio recording of the birth of his two children. Fabiano Fabiani asked to come to Rome to work on television. Fabiani said to Angela, "Enough with the speaking the news on radio, I want the journalists on television." In 1968 Angela was the first anchor alternating with Andrea Barbato on the National Television News at 13.30, the lunchtime edition of the news. Angela wrote 33 books which have sold over three million copies, received many honorary degrees, made about sixty documentaries and hundreds of television episodes, and won seven Telegacts and eight times the National Television Directing Award. In 1969 Angela left RAI newscast with the idea of making longer more detailed programs: "I realised that what really interested me was doing not deal with ten news items a day, but the news for a year."
Scientific journalism
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