Patrizia De Blanck

De Blanck was born in Rome on 9 November 1940. Her mother, Countess Lloyd Dario, was the last descendant of the Venetian family that once owned the Ca' Dario palace; her father was Cuban ambassador Guillermo "Willy" de Blanck y Menocal [de], first cousin once removed of Cuban president Mario García Menocal (and Secretary of State during his presidency) and son of Dutch-Cuban musician Hubert de Blanck. When the communist revolutionaries, led by Fidel Castro, came to power, they nationalized his entire family's assets, including villas and sugar cane and tobacco plantations, exiling the family from Cuba.^[2]

In 1958 De Blanck became one of the two assistants of the television programme Il Musichiere presented by Mario Riva (a role in which she alternated with Lorella De Luca, Alessandra Panaro, Carla Gravina, Patrizia Della Rovere [it], Marilù Tolo, Mimma Di Terlizzi and Brunella Tocci [it]).^[3]

In 2002, she returned to television, taking part as a regular guest in Chiambretti c'è [it] on Rai 2 with Piero Chiambretti, while the following year she was a regular guest on Domenica in, hosted by Paolo Bonolis. In 2005 she participated as a competitor in the reality show Il ristorante [it] on Rai 1, while from 2006 she intervened in Igor Righetti's radio programme Il ComuniCattivo broadcast on Radio 1 with the column La classe non è acqua, transgresdire con bon ton.^[4] In 2008 she was a contestant in the sixth edition of the reality show L'isola dei famosi, reaching the semi-final. In 2020, she participated as a contestant in the fifth edition of Big Brother VIP, being eliminated in the episode of 23 November 2020.^[5]