Ornella Muti

Muti was voted "The Most Beautiful Woman in the World" in 1994 by a world wide poll of readers of the magazine Class. She also sang "Monster Rap" and "Haunted House" on the Elvira's Monster Hits album. Muti has three children: an oldest daughter, Naike Rivelli, who is also an actress; and a son, Andrea, and daughter, Carolina, from her marriage to Facchinetti. Elvira has become a symbol of Halloween, and owns the trademark to her wig and costume. She is separated from Facchinetti and has been living with Stefano Piccolo since 1998. One of the first successful horror hostesses, Vampira (Maila Nurmi), later sued Peterson over character rights issues. Muti has been married twice; to Alessio Orano (1975-1981) and Federico Facchinetti (1988-?). Shortly after her marriage to Mark Pierson (now her business manager) in 1981, she created the character Elvira after a successful audition to be a horror movie show host. She was the first such host to be nationally syndicated.

She is mostly known to the French for appearing in a TV ad of Giovanni Panzani pasta. Back in the US, she joined the Los Angeles-based improvisational troupe The Groundlings. Other American movies she appeared in include Oscar (1991) and Once Upon a Crime... (1992). In Italy, she was the lead singer in a rock band and a chance encounter with Federico Fellini led to a small part in Roma (1972). She has primarily worked in Italian films but she made her American film debut in 1980 in Flash Gordon. She became a showgirl at The Dunes in Las Vegas at age 17. Muti modeled as a teenager and made her film debut in 1970 in La Moglie pił bella (aka The Most Beautiful Wife). Born in Manhattan, Kansas, Peterson grew up in Colorado.

She has a twin sister Claudia. She gained fame wearing dark, gothic, and cleavage-enhancing clothing as host of Elvira's Movie Macabre, a weekly horror movie presentation. She was born as Francesca Romana Rivelli, to a Neopolitan father and Estonian mother, on March 9, 1955 in Rome, Italy. Elvira, Mistress of the Dark is the screen persona of Cassandra Peterson (born September 17, 1949). Ornella Muti is an Italian actress.