Deborah Raffin

Dayrell · May 5, 2021

Deborah Iona Raffin (March 13, 1953 – November 21, 2012) was an American model and film and television actress who later became an audiobook publisher. Raffin appeared on numerous magazine covers including Teen, Seventeen and Good Housekeeping in the 1970s and 1980s and acted in several 1970s Hollywood films.

She co-starred with Joseph Bottoms in the Gregory Peck-produced film The Dove (1974). Her 1976 television movie, Nightmare in Badham County, became a theatrical hit in mainland China, making Raffin a star there and leading to her later becoming the first Western actress ever to undertake a movie promotion tour in that country.

She was nominated for both a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress and a Razzie Award for Worst Actress for her performance in Touched by Love in 1981. That same year, she starred in the TV series adaptation of the hit 1978 film Foul Play, in which she and Barry Bostwick took over the roles played by Goldie Hawn and Chevy Chase.

Raffin was born in Los Angeles to Trudy Marshall, a Brooklyn-born former movie actress, and Phillip Jordan Raffin, a restaurateur and business executive. Her father was Jewish, and her mother was from a Christian background; Raffin identified with Judaism.

Raffin died from leukemia in her native Los Angeles at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center on November 21, 2012, aged 59. After her funeral service, she was buried at Hillside Memorial Park & Mortuary in Culver City, California.