[4] (His grandparents, Domenico Raffetto and Anna Pensa, came first to nearby Newtown, California, from Ognio, a mountain village northeast of Genoa.

[3] He practiced law in San Francisco until 1928, when he directed drama at Berkeley as well as Los Angeles' Greek Theatre[3][6][7][8] Raffetto pitched a program concept to NBC Radio's Tom Hutchinson in San Francisco.

Raffetto landed the lead role as the family's eldest son, Paul Barbour,[9] a fighter pilot wounded in World War I.

"[3][4][6] In 1939, Morse started I Love a Mystery with three cast members from One Man's Family, including Raffetto as Jack Packard, "a soft-spoken, taciturn hero in the best traditions of the West."

Together with characters Doc Long (a "brawling womanizer") and Reggie York (a "proper Englishman"), the threesome formed a team of "specialists in adventure.

He continued to act in the 1940s and 1950s, including major films like A Foreign Affair (1948) with Marlene Dietrich and Storm Center (1956) with Bette Davis.