Italian singer, actor, dancer and TV host Raffaella Carrà has died. She was 78.
Italian singer, actor, dancer and TV host Raffaella Carrà — who over the course of a 60-year career became a national pop culture sensation, sold millions of records across Europe, and found TV success in Spain and Latin America — has died, Italian national news agency ANSA and multiple Italian media outlets have reported. Carrà, who was 78, had been suffering from an unspecified illness, her former partner of many years Sergio Japino, a choreographer, told ANSA. Born in Bologna, Carrà started in showbiz as a child, first appearing at age 8 in the 1952 melodrama “Tormento del Passato,” directed by Mario Bonnard. A few other small film roles followed. She subsequently moved to Rome where Carrà studied classical ballet and attended acting classes at Rome’s Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia film school, from which she graduated in 1960. In 1965, Carrà co-starred with Frank Sinatra in Canadian director Mark Robson’s World War II drama “Von Ryan’s Express.” In the 1970s, Carrà rose to fame in Italy as a singer and dancer as co-host of the variety show “Canzonissima,” where she plugged her original songs directly into its dance and music numbers, which made her a trailblazer.
