Sergi Schaaff has died. He said, in an interview, that he was convinced that a creator never retires. And in his case, this has been the case, although the 2022 Ondas Award to his To know and to win as the best entertainment program, it was picked up by his daughter Abigail, accompanied by the presenters of the space, Jordi Hurtado, Elisenda Roca and Pilar Vázquez. She has passed away at the age of 85, leaving an indelible television legacy. The memory of him will be linked, above all, to the La 2 contest, in which his name has appeared labeled after him for 25 years (and those that remain) around lunchtime.
It was José Pablo López, director of General Content at RTVE, who announced on social networks the death of the great pioneer of TVE, professionally linked to public television since the sixties, shortly after he confirmed by the public entity. “Tonight Sergi Schaaff has passed away, a professional to whom television and, above all, TVE owe a great deal. DEP ”, López published on his Twitter account on the morning of this Tuesday.
Tonight Sergi Schaff has passed away, a professional to whom television and, above all, TVE owe a great deal. He was the architect of hits like If I know I won’t come, Time is gold, 3×4, La luna and, above all, Know and win. D.E.P pic.twitter.com/iq3itpRl56
– José Pablo López (@Josepablo_ls) January 3, 2023
Schaaff was known to be a close man on the deal. Before each recording To know and to win (five a day, at a rate of a couple of times a week) he would appear in the dressing room and introduce himself politely and uprightly. “I’m Sergi Schaaff, I’m the director of the program, and although you already know how it goes, I’m going to review it for you…”, he said as he sat with his arms crossed and his legs spread in front of the contestants, to gloss the tests and announce what would go in the section Each sage with his themea minute away from going on set.
From a table in the dark, he directed the program firmly, accompanied by Juanjo Cardenal and, later, Elisenda Roca, acting as the voice that recites the questions to the contestants. He was a loved and respected director, committed to cultural television for all audiences.
In To know and to wincontrary to the rest of the television contests, there is no casting on video. Photogenicity or spark are not rewarded —nor are they sought—, only the knowledge and sympathy that their contestants transmit.
theatrical past
The actress Rosa María Sardá told the writer Terenci Moix that she liked to escape to the town of Ventalló, in the Alt Empordà of Girona, where she hung out with her group of lifelong friends, who called themselves “the gang of Ventalló” (the Ventalló gang). The playwright Josep Maria Benet i Jornet, the actors Enric Majó and Àngels Moll, Sardá’s then-husband —and recent forceful character of the heart— Josep María Mainat, Terenci Moix himself and, of course, Sergi Schaaff.
Àngels Molls was Schaaff’s wife and a close friend of Sardá since he was a teenager, with whom Sergi shared walks and evenings in Ventalló and on stage, first in theater and then on television. It was in this second medium that Sergi Schaaff and Rosa María Sardá worked together for the longest time. In 1979, both premiered Party, with the scripts by Moix and the music by Mainat (still in the comedy group La Trinca, still far from being the powerful television producer it is today). “A song from that television series comes to my mind with its drops of sadness. The lyrics were a long series of Hollywood actresses, Bette Davis, Garbo, etc. Y [Rosa María] ended up singing ‘But it’s you, and you, and always you’, the director and filmmaker recalled in a text he wrote after the death of the actress, in June 2020.
Catalan was no stranger to the cinematographic medium, and in To know and to win it always had a huge presence, recovering for the general public names that free-to-air television programmers seem to want to relegate to oblivion. In the contest entered the same Veronica Lake as Ann Margret, without leaving behind the actresses of today. She compared her friend Sardá to Margarita Xirgu (someone will remember from the history books) and to Mary Santpere.
To the gag already the songs of Party with Rosa María Sardá followed, in 1984, the contest I want to see you there, of which many will still remember the tagline “Honorato, turn off the TV for a while”. Before all these programs he had directed Novel, a space lasting half an hour per chapter, which was broadcast by Televisión Española between 1962 and 1979 and which adapted novels for the small screen. Of the 17 chapters directed by the Catalan, we will highlight dressed in tulle (adaptation of the homonymous novel by Carmen de Icaza), the last home (by Aleksander Kuprin) or the big drunk (by René Daumal). In fiction he also directed chapters of fantastic chronicles (available in the digital archive of RTVE), Great theater either studio one. To highlight his version of Salome with Núria Espert (and adapted by Terenci Moix from Oscar Wilde’s work), for which he won an Ondas Award in 1979.
the world of entertainment
However, where Schaaff stood out the most was in entertainment programs. If I know I don’t come joined him with Jordi Hurtado (for life, literally), and as a creator he stood out in the contest 3×4 and in the interview space Moon —both with Julia Otero—, at the same time that in 1989 he devised a space as mythical and remembered as The time is gold, which, presented by Constantino Romero and, once again, Jordi Hurtado, put the contestants’ knowledge to the test. It was, of course, To know and to win his longest-running program, which he has directed at the foot of the canyon for 25 years, even retiring Juanjo Cardenal himself (whom Elisenda Roca replaced).
Today the family of the dean of La 2 is left an orphan: Pilar, Elisenda, Jordi, the Quart TV team and the professionals from RTVE Catalunya will undoubtedly miss the great Sergi Schaaff. In command of the veteran contest is his daughter Abigail, while Anaïs (his other daughter) is dedicated to production and the script in the field of fiction. A farewell that leaves, however, years of good television and better memories.
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