Simona Ventura

Simona Ventura
Ventura on the red carpet of the 66th Venice Film Festival
Born	(1965-04-01) April 1, 1965 (age 51) Bentivoglio
Nationality	Italian
Occupation	television presenter

Simona Ventura (born 1 April 1965 in Bentivoglio) is an Italian television host.

Ventura started in TV on "Domani Sposi" with Giancarlo Magalli on Rai Uno. Her love for sport took her into sports reporting: for the Italian Telemontecarlo she was the correspondent during the 1990 FIFA World Cup, UEFA Euro 1992 and the 1992 Summer Olympics.

At RAI, Ventura appeared with Pippo Baudo on the Sunday afternoon programme "Domenica In" (1991) and then, in 1992, the sports programme "Domenica Sportiva". She also been on "Pavarotti International".

Ventura's career continued on Mediaset channels hosting variety shows like "Mai dire gol", "Cuori e Denari, "Boom", "Scherzi a parte" (a programme very similar to Punk'd), "Festivalbar", "Le Iene", "Matricole", Gli indelebili '99, "Cari amici miei", "Zelig - Noi facciamo cabaret", and "Piccole Canaglie". In all, she spent eight years at Mediaset.

In 1996 Simona hosted the newcomers' section of the Sanremo Music Festival for RAI.

In 2001 Simona went back to Rai Due to host the seventh edition of the Sunday afternoon show "Quelli che il calcio" and a prime time show called "Quelli che lo smoking". In 2002 Pippo Baudo chose her for the "Dopofestival" (a variety show about the Sanremo Music Festival) and she then presented a late night television show with Gene Gnocchi called "La grande notte del lunedì sera". She has been presenting the Italian version of Celebrity Survivor, L'Isola Dei Famosi since 2003. In 2004 she was host presenter of San Remo Music Festival. In 2005 and 2006 she presented Music farm, a show similar to the Hit Me, Baby, One More Time format, on Rai Due.