With her flirtatious grin, wide eyes and shaggy dirty-blonde hair, Italian actress Micaela Ramazzotti has a charming girl- next-door quality about her even when she's playing overtly sexual roles. Born in 1979 in Rome, she began her career in her teens as a model in the extremely Italian diversion known as the fotoromanzo, live-action comic books in which pictures of models are overlaid with speech balloons and text. From there, she began working in advertising and music videos, making her film debut with a small role in the comedy "La prima volta." A series of eye-candy roles followed in lightweight films like "Christmas Vacation 2000" (co-starring then-fading American star Carmen Electra) and the self-explanatory "Sexy Comedy." Her first starring role came in the title role of the Dracula parody "Zora the Vampire" in 2000. But by mid-decade, Ramazzotti's vivacious personality and underrated comedic chops were landing her meatier roles in more respectable films. She even explored less comedic roles in films like the thriller "Blindati" and the dark comedy-drama "Non prendere impegni stasera." In 2008, she took a lead role in the television drama "Crimini bianchi," which ran for two seasons. In 2010, she garnered some of the best reviews of her career in the bittersweet comedy-drama "The First Beautiful Thing."