News from Italy
City lights: Raffaella Carrà
by Maria Angelico
Who was the star who shook the whole world with his stage performances? Whoever you ask, the answer will be “Raffaella Carrà”. The entire world was watching his shows. She gathered everyone around one stage, making them dance to the same beat…
We bring our beloved Raffaella Carrà to the corner of honour, “Stars of the City” of the Vita gazette. Who was this woman who shone brightly on stage?
She was a showgirl, singer, dancer, actress, TV and radio presenter and author, the undisputed queen of Italian television.
She was exceptional: she was the symbol of female freedom; she made a cultural revolution with a smile; it will remain in the history of Italian popular culture with her sweetness and firmness; her great independence; the much-imitated laughter, the historic ballets; the great humanity that has always characterised her. She was the most complete artist in the Italian show.
Raffaella Carrà, pseudonym of Raffaella Maria Roberta Pelloni, was born in Bologna on 18 June 1943 from the union between Raffaele Pelloni, owner of a farm, and Angela Iris Dell’Utri, who runs a café in the city of Bellaria. However, his parents separated two years after the wedding. She started dancing and acting when she was only five years old, and at 8, she made his film debut.
At age eight, Raffaella left Emilia-Romagna to move to Rome, where she studied at the National Academy of Dance and graduated from the Experimental Center of Cinematography. She made her debut very young in the film Tormento del Passato. She then worked in several films alongside actors like Marcello Mastroianni and Frank Sinatra. The television debut was in Tempo di Danza alongside Lelio Luttazzi. The definitive turning point came with the arrival of television: here, Raffaella understood that she could express herself and be what she wanted. At Canzonissima with Corrado, she caused a scandal for his uncovered navel. In 1970 she achieved national fame thanks to Canzonissima, the first black and white small-screen showgirl. Symbol of sensuality and freedom, Raffaella has also established herself on a musical level with songs that have made history, such as Chissà se Va and Tuca Tuca.
Far from affecting her success, Raffaella’s sensuality was soon combined with her irrepressible laughter and talent, making her participate in various TV programs. Her most successful show was undoubtedly Càrramba! What a surprise, aired from 1995 to 2002 and then in 2008, with which Raffaella, on Saturday evenings, brought together families and people who had been away for a long time, without however disdaining moments of dance, entertainment and even cabaret. Her uncovered navel flaunted during the theme song as she sang Ma che musica maestro! Gave scandal. He launched the well-known Tuca tuca and Chissà se va in the following year’s edition. She graduated from the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia, and in 1960, she was in the film The Long Night of ‘43 cast.
In 1974 she presented Milleluci together with Mina. Having become an indispensable television personality, she hosted successful programs such as Ma che sera, Fantastico 3, and the very popular Ready, Raffaella. A daytime program that brought her the title of Female European Television Personality in 1984, awarded by the European TV Magazines Association. Presenter of Domenica in semper in Rai, she moved briefly to Canale 5, then returned to Raiuno in 1991 with Fantastico 12. In Madrid for a few years, she hosted Hola Raffaella for Spanish television; returning to Italy in 1995, she presented the lucky Caramba! What a surprise program with a sensational audience record in the most critical Saturday night slot. In 2001 he conducted the Sanremo Festival, and in 2006. She flew again to Spain in 2008 for three programs related to the Eurovision Song Contest. Love was a show that she held dear because it was dedicated to long-distance adoptions that she practised numerous times. In 2013 she coached the talent show The Voice of Italy.
Icon of world music, she has sold over 60 million records, and her songs have been translated into Spanish and distributed in Latin American countries. In 2019 she conducted Telling begins you, interviewing well-known faces from show business.
She has conducted countless programs in Italy and abroad, followed, known and esteemed in half the world. She will remain forever in the common imagination with his blond bob and head detachment during her fantastic choreography. With his sober but confidential style, she has interviewed professionals like no other, the greatest celebrities of every cultural field.
Raffaella Carrà, as a young woman, had an eight-year relationship with the Juventus player Gino Stacchini. Her flirtations, from Little Tony to Frank Sinatra, have been attributed to her. From 1969 to 1980, she was linked to the television author Gianni Boncompagni, creator of many of her musical successes. Subsequently, she had a long history, of over fifteen years, with the director and choreographer Sergio Japino. Despite her long and vital relationships, above all the one with Sergio Japino, Raffaella Carrà has never married. And never had children but supported several distance adoptions. Sergio Japino, the children of his brother Enzo who died in 2001, and Barbara, Paola and Claudia, the three daughters of Gianni Boncompagni. Raffaella Carrà’s grandchildren are Matteo and Federica Pelloni, children of her brother Enzo.
A vibrant life lived intensely without slipping into banality and vulgarity, an explosion of highly contagious joy and outstanding professionalism: Raffaella Carrà a complete artist, an innovator and an absolute icon.
She died in Rome at the Clinica del Rosario on 5 July 2021 at the age of 78 from lung cancer. Her ex-partner Sergio Japino announced her departure, saying: “She has gone to a better world, where her humanity, her unmistakable laughter and her extraordinary talent will shine forever”. Japino also revealed that Carrà had been battling a disease for some time and lived in secrecy.
Thousands of people paid homage to her at the funeral home set up in the Capitol and at state funerals. On July 9, the funeral in Rome in the Basilica of Santa Maria in Aracoeli.
“She has gone to a better world, where her humanity, unmistakable laughter and extraordinary talent will shine forever.”
