Silviu Prigoană, a Romanian businessman and politician whose four marriages to a TV star produced riveting headlines for years, has died. He was 60.
He apparently suffered a heart attack on Tuesday while eating lunch at a restaurant in the Transylvanian town of Bran, the spokesman for the Brasov Ambulance Service dr. Liviu Stelea said. Medics were unable to resuscitate him. An autopsy will determine the cause of death.
The media mogul started the first private news channel, Realitatea TV, and the first Romania-based channel, TV Sport which was later sold to Central European Media Enterprises and two music channels which played Romanian traditional music and Gypsy pop.
He made most of his fortune in the garbage business, owning 60% of the Rosal waste collection company that serviced one sector in the capital, and the cities of Cluj, Suceava and Baia Mare.
Like other post-communist millionaires, he went into politics in December and was elected to a the Romanian Chamber of Deputies in 2008 for one term. He was a member of former President Traian Basescu’s Democratic Liberal Party.
But he gained national attention for his tumultuous love life and four marriages to TV star Adriana Bahmuțeanu.The couple finally divorced for good in May 2009.
He was also known for his limp, the result of a work accident at the factory where he worked in 1984 that led to his leg being amputated. Offered the chance to retire on medical grounds, the ambitious Prigoana, refused and returned to work several months later. After the 1989 revolution, he moved to Bucharest to make a name and fortune.
He leaves two children from that marriage and two sons from his first marriage which ended in 1994 when his wife died.
There was no immediate word about funeral arrangements.
Delia Budeanu, one of Romania’s best known TV presenters of the last 50 years, dies
