Actor. He is the youngest son of a family of artists, the father is the actor Eduardo Scarpetta, the mother Luisa De Filippo, the elder brother the well-known actor Eduardo and the eldest daughter the actress Titina. He lives a difficult youth, mostly spent in boarding school. However, little by little, his great passion for acting also comes out and he makes his debut in the company of his stepbrother, Vincenzo Scarpetta. He soon breaks away from it, eager to break free from the family bond and starts acting with secondary companies specialized in dialectal theater. In particular, he works with the Molinari company with the scripts by Matilde Serao, Salvatore Di Giacomo, Libero Bovio. However, it was in 1925 that the real leap in quality took place, he was hired by Salvatore De Muto. From this moment on, he is widely appreciated for his art of improvisation. In 1931 he founded with his brother Eduardo the company "Teatro Umoristico I De Filippo". They are staged above all at the Kursaal and the Cinema Reale in Naples, enjoying great success, so much so that they extend the tour to other Italian cities as well. They stage many comedies they wrote together, such as "Natale in casa Cupiello", performed for the first time at the Kursaal on December 25, 1931. In 1954, the relationship with his brother came to a halt and the company broke up. Peppino sets out on his own, developing his own style, more comical than his brother. He writes, performs and directs numerous highly regarded farces. His film debut dates back to 1932, with Mario Bonnard's "Tre uomini in frack". Subsequently it is a proliferation of comic interpretations, especially in the fifties and sixties, almost always alongside actors, such as Aldo Fabrizi and Totò. Thanks to an interpretation with Totò, in "Totò, Peppino e i fuorilegge" (1956) by Camillo Mastrocinque, he gets the only Nastro d'Argento of his career, as best supporting actor. Particularly noteworthy in his filmography are the roles played for Federico Fellini, in films such as "Luci del varietà" (1950), by Alberto Lattuada, of which Fellini is responsible for the subject and the screenplay, and "Le tentazioni del dottor Antonio" , episode of "Boccaccio '70" (1962), by Mario Monicelli, Federico Fellini, Luchino Visconti and Vittorio De Sica. Memorable is also the character he invents for "Canzonissima 1966-67", 'Pappagone'. His predilection, however, is entirely for the theater. From the last years of his career to remember his performance in "Il guardiano" (1977), by Harold Pinter. Among the comedies transposed on TV to be mentioned are, "L'avaro" (1963), by Carla Ragionieri and Manuel Lualdi, and "Giorgio Dandin" (1964), which he also director. Among those written by him, "L' ospite gradito" (1962) and "Non è vero ma ci credo" (1980), in collaboration with Giancarlo Nicotra. He marries for the first time with Adele Carloni with whom he has a son, Luigi, who follows the identical footsteps of his father. The two then separate and Peppino goes to live with the actress Lidia Màrtora Maresca. He gets a divorce from his first wife after a long time, and manages to marry Lidia only in 1971, when unfortunately she is on the verge of death. In 1977 he remarries with an actress in his company, Lelia Mangano.