Wrote screenplays for two Oscar-winning films

Ugo Pirro, 87, who wrote the screenplays for two Oscar-winning films, died Friday at his home in Rome, city officials said.

Pirro was a co-author of the screenplays for Elio Patri’s “Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion,” which won the Academy Award for best foreign-language film of 1970, and Vittorio De Sica’s “The Garden of the Finzi-Continis,” which was named best foreign-language film of 1971.

Pirro was nominated for Academy Awards for the screenplays, but did not win.

Born in Salerno, Italy, in 1920, Pirro began working as a journalist and novelist. After World War II, he moved to Rome and wrote his first screenplay, for the 1951 Carlo Lizzani film “Achtung! Banditi!”