Drug Lord's Girlfriend

Background:

American versatile actress hailed from New Jersey Marisa Petroro, also known as Marisa Parker, has accumulated numerous credits on her pocket since launching her career in Hollywood in 1997. The Top Five finalist at the 1996 Miss Italia World who gained first break with an important role in a nationally aired commercial directed by David Lynch is perhaps best-recognized by moviegoers for playing the beautiful girlfriend of Drug Lord Ethan (played by Paul Rudd) in the Comedy Central “Reno 911!: Miami” (2007) and having small roles in the hits “Tomcats” (2001) and “Pumpkin” (2002). On the small screen, Petroro has guested in such hit shows as “The Pretender,” “According to Jim,” “Las Vegas,” “Scrubs” and “Reno 911!.” She played Carrie Parker on the CBS daytime soap opera “The Young and the Restless” during the 2002 season and was one of the most acknowledged models in the NBC top-rated game-show “Deal or No Deal” from 2005 to 2007.

Petroro's admirers should not miss her impressive performances in the forthcoming movies “Faux” (2008), “Angels There Attend” (2008) and “Held Up” (TV, 2008).

Former Miss Italia USA Petroro was voted one of Stuff Magazine's “Most Amazing Newcomers” in 2003 and ranked No. 103 on the Stuff Magazine lists of “103 Sexiest Women In The World,” that same year. In 2006, she was named one of People Magazine's “100 Most Beautiful People.”

The fluent Italian speaker is a cancer survivor. She was diagnosed with Rhabdomyosarcoma, an uncommon childhood cancer that impacts the muscles, when she was 19. Since then, the New Jersey beauty has dedicated her time to supporting personal individuals who have been diagnosed with cancer and are taking chemotherapy. As a result of her outspoken battle against Rhabdomyosarcoma, a contestant on “Deal or No Deal,” in which she became a briefcase model number 18 from 2005-2007, donated 10% of his win to The Tomorrow’s Children Fund, the organization that helped her cause.

A true philanthropist, Petroro has worked with the Sarcoma Foundation of America since 2007. The aims of the organization are to find new therapies to care for sarcoma as well as raise awareness and the research needs of sarcoma patients. She was appointed as the spokesperson of the foundation in 2008.

An alumnus of Kean University, Petroro returned to her alma mater in 2007 to be the Commencement Speaker at the university. Also in that same year, The Center of Italian and Italian-American Culture awarded her Woman Of The Year award.

Bonnie & Brainy

Childhood and Family:

Marisa Petroro was born on February 11, 1972, in Elizabeth, New Jersey. She attended and graduated from Roselle Catholic High School, where she was named “Most likely to be remembered.” She went on to study at Rutgers' University, but transferred to Kean University in New Jersey after only a year. She graduated with a Cum Laude degree in Marketing. In college, she became a member of Mu Kappa Tau (National Marketing Honor Society) and was inducted into Lambda Alpha Sigma, the liberal arts and science honor society.

A performer since she was a little girl, Marisa started participating in beauty pageant when she was four years old, and by age 5, she had crowned her first title, the Miss PeeWee New Jersey. At age 8, Marisa began taking trips to New York to study acting at the prestigious HB Studio. She headed to Los Angeles at age 25 to give her acting career a shot.

Miss Italy USA

Career:

First appearing in beauty pageants at age 4, Marisa Petroro went on to crown a number of titles under her belt, including the 1996 Miss Italy USA, but it was acting that attracted her most. In 1997, the New Jersey native who trained at New York's HB Studio as a child made her way to Hollywood to pursue her acting career.

A few weeks after her arrival, Petroro gained national exposure when she was hired by director David Lynch to appear in a television commercial for Clear Blue Easy pregnancy test. This led to a guest role in the comedy series “Ned and Stacey” and small parts in the movies “Rose by Any Other Name...” and “Contact,” which was directed by Robert Zemeckis and starring Jena Malone, David Morse and Jodie Foster (all 1997). She has since become a regular presence on both television and films.

Billed as Marisa Parker, Petroro was cast in the short film “April Fool” (1998), opposite Benjamin Shelfer, supported Cuba Gooding Jr., Tom Berenger, Marianne Jean-Baptiste and Eric Stoltz for the direct-to-video crime/thriller “A Murder of Crows” (1999) and made her TV-movie bow by playing the role of Sharee Landon on “Michael Landon, the Father I Knew” (1999), a biopic about television star Michael Landon (played by John Schneider) which was directed by his own son, Michael Landon Jr. She also appeared as a cunning lesbian in the independent film “The Right Hook” (2000) and dotted her TV resume with appearances in episodes of “Brimstone,” “Rescue 77” and “The Strip.” During 1997 to 2000, Petroro played Emily in three episodes of the Fox Sci-fi series “The Pretender.”

Petroro had her first taste with box office hits when she landed a small role in the Columbia Pictures comedy “Tomcats” (2001), a very hilarious movie directed and penned by Gregory Poirier. Among her costars in the film were Jerry O'Connell, Shannon Elizabeth, Jake Busey, Horatio Sanz and Jaime Pressly. After working in Eric Schwab's “The Learning Curve” and the Dennis Hopper short-lived Sci-Fi series “Flatland” (2002), she enjoyed a prominent supporting role as Courtney Burke on the Christina Ricci hit comedy “Pumpkin” (2002), appeared with Frankie Muniz, Paul Giamatti, Amanda Bynes and Amanda Detmer in the Shawn Levy-directed “Big Fat Liar” (2002), costarred with Julien Hernandez on the comedy/romance “Sex, Politics & Cocktails” (2002) before joining the cast of the CBS daytime soap opera “The Young and the Restless” (2002), playing Carrie Parker.

The following years saw Petroro in 2003's “White Blossom,” a 14-short starring the actress as a young Italian woman named Angelina, the award-winning drama “Wait Means Never” (2004), in which she costarred with David Jones and Rebecca Lowman, the thriller “No Witness” (2004), opposite Steve Barnes and Corey Feldman, and the comedy “The Rouge Shoes” (2004), where she played the lead role of Didi. She maintained her presence on the small screen by having episodic roles in such shows as “The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson,” “According to Jim,” “Freddie,” “Las Vegas”(all 2005) and “Scrubs” (2006). In December 2005, Petroro started her tenure on the NBC No.1 hit series “Deal or No Deal,” where she was the model holding case No. 18. She stayed on the game-show until May 2007.

Back to films, Petroro costarred with Mark Feuerstein and Jeff Kober in the drama “Lucid” (2006), which won director/writer Sam Friedlander a Beverly Hills Film Festival for Best Screenplay and a Philadelphia FirstGlance Film Festival'sFirstGlance Award for Best Short Narrative. Also in that same year, she starred in the critically-acclaimed short/comedy “A Little Light,” teamed up with Corri English and Scot Davis for the multiple award-winning horror “Unrest” and acted in the short “The Run.”

Petroro, however, did not receive her next mainstream exposure until she was cast as the high-strung and gorgeous girlfriend of Paul Rudd's Ethan the Drug Lord on the Robert Ben Garant-helmed “Reno 911!: Miami” (1997), which also starred Danny DeVito, Niecy Nash and the director himself, among others. Later that same year, she portrayed Tatiana in the drama/Sci-Fi “One Day Like Rain,” directed and penned by Paul Todisco, Isabella in Jason Todd Ipson's comedy/romance “Everybody Wants to Be Italian,” about how two non-Italians claim to be Italian in order to win the hearts of each other in Boston’s North End, and Heidi in an episode of the comedy/series “Reno 911!.”

Recently appearing in an episode of the comedy series “Rules of Engagement” (2008), Petroro has been completed filming the TV series “Simian Undercover Detective Squad” (2008) and the short “Good God Bad Dog” (2009), opposite Tom Sizemore and James Russo. She will play the starring role Pixie in the dramedy “Faux” (2008), by director/writer Kirsten Severson, and costar with Traci Lords in “Angels There Attend” (2008), a drama helmed by Sven Pape and jointly written by Nicholas Brandt and Regan Wynne. She also has a role in the upcoming made-for-TV film “Held Up” (2008), along side Krista Allen, Bree Turner, Jack Carpenter, Ken Jeong and Jason Sklar.

Awards:

• The Center of Italian and Italian-American Culture: Woman Of The Year award, 2007