Pietro Paolo Cevoli

Pietro Paolo Cevoli (Riccione, 29 giugno 1958) is an Italian comedian and cabaret artist. From the age of eleven, during every summer between school years, he helped his parents run the family hotel in his native Riccione. He attended the Università di Bologna between 1979 and 1983 and graduated in law. After graduating he worked as a manager at the Grand Hotel di Rimini. On 31 marzo 1986 he married the stylist Elisabetta Garuffi, and the couple had two sons, Giacomo (1988) and Davide (1990). In 1990 he moved to Bologna with his family.

That same year he took part in the competition for young comedians La Zanzara d'Oro, where he came third after Antonio Albanese, his first experience as a comic character actor. Between 1990 and 1991 he took part as a guest, for 15 episodes, in the Maurizio Costanzo Show. Following in his father's footsteps, he became an entrepreneur and opened a venue, which began to be frequented by figures from the entertainment world, among them Gino e Michele, who noticed that Cevoli was very good at entertaining guests and invited him to perform at a Milan venue, the Zelig. After initially declining, he accepted in 2001. From the venue he went directly to the Monday evening television broadcast on Italia 1, where in 2002 he brought to prominence what would become his best-known character, Palmiro Cangini, an assessore of an imaginary Romagnola municipality. Throughout the decade he was a regular guest on Zelig and a protagonist of summer tours.

In 2008 he was a testimonial for the Banco farmaceutico and shot a television advertisement, and also appeared in an advert for Kerakoll alongside Claudio Bisio. He continued to perform shows successfully, while his official job remained that of a consultant in the catering sector. From 2021 he returned to perform at Zelig with the character of the assessore Palmiro Cangini. In 2023 he took part in the third edition of LOL - Chi ride è fuori on Prime Video, and the following year took part, together with his wife, in the eleventh edition of Pechino Express on Sky Uno. In 2025 he was on Only Fun on Nove. He has also published several books, including Cent'anni di Roncofritto (2002), which won the Premio Forte dei Marmi, and Mare mosso bandiera rossa (2003), which won the Premio Flaiano.