Gianna Lou Cassini (née Müller; January 2, 1949 – March 18, 2025), known professionally as Nadia Cassini, was an American-Italian actress, singer, and television showgirl who became one of the defining faces of Italy’s late-1970s wave of bawdy popular cinema. Born in Woodstock, New York to parents who performed as dancers and entertainers, she left home young, drifting through club work and modeling in Europe before settling in Italy in the late 1960s.
Cassini broke into film at the start of the 1970s, first drawing attention in Piero Vivarelli’s sensual adventure Il dio serpente (1970). Over the decade she moved between genre pictures—crime, adventure, and sci-fi—appearing in titles such as Pulp (1972) and Starcrash (1978). Her real stardom arrived with the commedia sexy all’italiana boom, where her combination of comic timing, glamour, and pin-up allure made her a marquee name. She starred opposite Lino Banfi in a string of box-office hits including L’insegnante balla… con tutta la classe (1979), The Nurse in the Military Madhouse(1979), and La dottoressa ci sta col colonnello (1980), cementing her place in that era’s pop-culture imagination.
Parallel to film, she became a familiar television presence on variety programs and released dance-pop music, scoring attention in the early 1980s with singles like “When (I’m Falling in Love)” and later albums recorded for Italian labels. Her career slowed after a cosmetic surgery meant to repair an old injury went badly wrong, leaving facial damage and the partial loss of her right ear, an ordeal that pushed her away from the spotlight. In later years she worked intermittently abroad and eventually returned to the United States.
Cassini was married briefly to journalist Igor Cassini and later partnered with Greek actor Yorgo Voyagis, with whom she had a daughter. She died in Reggio Calabria, Italy, on March 18, 2025, after a long illness, aged 76.
