Ambra

Italy recognizes Ambra Angiolini as one of its leading entertainers. At just twenty-two she had already spent seven years in the spotlight as both a television personality and a recording artist. The Telegatto awarded to her in 1994 named her New Personality of the Year. Her albums have each exceeded one million copies sold, and every tour she has mounted has sold out completely. Versions of those albums re-recorded in Spanish have also achieved major success throughout Spain and Latin America. Her path to prominence opened at fifteen when a dance instructor urged her to try out for the 1992 Italian program Non e'La Rai. The next year she became a household name after producers cast her as the lead in the show's segment Gioco Dello Zainetto. During the program's final season, spanning 1994 to 1995, she anchored a talk-show portion aimed at its youngest viewers. Although her first album, T'appartengo, released in 1994, moved more than 370,000 units in Italy and marked the first of her works translated into Spanish, she remained a steady presence on Italian screens; the television film Favola in which she starred drew more than six million viewers. In October 1995 she took the lead role in the series Generazione X, which examined the everyday lives and challenges facing Italian teenagers. February 1996 found her hosting the popular special Dopo Festival, where she interviewed performers who had appeared at that year's Sanremo Festival. While touring Italy later in 1996 she sang and danced alongside Band X; one concert from the run aired nationwide on Italian Radio 105. The same period saw her second album arrive just as T'appartengo ascended to the top of the charts across South America. A subsequent South American tour reached its peak with her appearance at the Viña del Mar festival in Santiago, Chile, in February 1997. On her third album, Ritmo Vitale, issued the same year, she wrote eight of the songs herself. Ambra resides with her parents in Rome's Montemario district and has also appeared in the television films Super and Non Dimenticate Lo Spazzolini Da Denti.