Farewell to Donatella Raffai, historical presenter of Who has seen it?

She retired from television and the public scene in 2000 by her own choice, but audiences have always continued to associate the sweet and kind face ofthe Donatella Raffai to some of the pivotal Rai information programs, from Yellow Telephone to Who has seen?. Today, Thursday 10 February, Raffai dies at the age of 78 after a long illness: to break the news is her husband Sergio Maestranzi, former director of Rai, whom Raffai married after a long coexistence of over 30 years in 2020. “Ours was a great and wonderful love, Donatella a generous, reserved woman, who had decided at some point to move away from TV and to devote himself to private life, ”said Maestranzi.

Originally from Fabriano, Donattela Raffai began a recording career at the age of 16 taking care of public relations and the image of various singers, including Nada and Claudio Baglioni. In 1971 she joined Rai: first on the radio and then, at the end of the Eighties, on TV on Rai3. On April 30, 1989 he leads the very first episode of Who has seen? together with the journalist Paolo Guzzanti, father of Corrado and Sabina: success was immediate and, in 1990, Raffai won both the Telegatto and the TV Oscar as female character of the year. With her lively air and incisive style, Raffai manages to cement her professional position by helping to strengthen that “Tv-truth” which, shortly thereafter, would explode in all its roar.

Over the years, he tries other programs such as Civil Part And 8262, not hiding a certain intolerance for certain impositions exercised by Rai: «One tries to do new things, tries the path of experimentation, but always finds obstacles. The Rai system forces you to occupy a certain box, the schedule becomes a prisoner ». The friction with the Public Service led her, in 1999, to leave the company to move to Mediaset, where it leads Yellow 4which on paper was supposed to be some sort of remake of Yellow Telephone: is his latest program. After that, Donatella Raffai abandons the public scene, however, retaining a special place in the hearts of the spectators.

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