Raffaella Carrà

Raffaella Maria Roberta Pelloni (June 18, 1943), better known as Raffaella Carrà, was an Italian singer, actress, and TV host who enjoyed a great deal of success both in her native Italy as well as in Latin America. She was one of the biggest entertainers of her generation as well as an LGBT icon. Raffaella Carrà spent most of her childhood between her mother’s bar and her father’s ice cream shop in Bellaria – Igea Marina. After dropping out of ballet classes at age 14, she enrolled in the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia and graduated in 1960. Following a brief stint as a Hollywood actress, starring in Von Ryan’s Express (1965) alongside Frank Sinatra, she returned to Italy and resumed her acting career there. Throughout the 70s, she hosted many popular Italian TV shows such as Canzonissima 70 and Milleluci, and crossed over into the Spanish market with the programs ¡Señoras y Señores! and La Hora de Raffaella Carrá. Despite having made her official music debut in 1970 with the LP Raffaella, it wouldn’t be until 1976 that she reached massive success with the album Forte Forte Forte. The full-length included the hit single “A Far l'Amore Comincia Tu,” which was translated into several languages and entered the Top 5 in Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, and Switzerland. Subsequently, Raffaella Carrà kept performing and hosting TV shows well into the 21st century before her death from lung cancer in 2021. Her last full-length, the Christmas album Ogni Volta Che è Natale (2018), had reached Number 11 on the Italian charts.