Elisabetta Pellini

Blonde bombshell Elisabetta Pellini got her start as a model, working not only in the usual television commercials and print ads, but in the distinctly Italian form known as the fotoromanzo: a sort of live-action comic book in which pictures of actors are overlaid with speech balloons and text. By the mid-1990s, the Swiss-born Pellini was appearing on Italian television as a guest on variety shows such as "Mai dire Go! ," on which comedians riffed on films of sports bloopers in the style of "Mystery Science Theater 3000." Though Pellini continued to work primarily in television, she began a concurrent film career with a small role in the 1998 romantic comedy "Cucciolo." After several years of increasingly prominent roles in TV movies, Pellini got her first big break co-starring as the voluptuous Virginia Giovardi in the romantic comedy series "Compagni di scuola" in 2001. After this success, Pellini became a regular presence on Italy's television screens: her high profile projects include a co-starring role in the melodramatic TV movie "Senza via d'uscita - Un amore spezzato," an adaptation of the Henry James novel "The Turn of the Screw," and the lighthearted comedy "Un coccodrillo per amico," in which she somewhat improbably played a Catholic nun.