Ladies In Action: Melissa Riso in a photoshoot for magazine

Monday, August 4, 2014

Melissa Riso in a photoshoot for magazine

Melissa Riso was born June 27, 1986 in Monterey California. Her father raised her in a nearby small town called Salinas after her mother returned to Guam.

Melissa’s tattoo was a result of a near death car accident while she was a freshman in high school. She had broken her back and suffered internal bleeding. Surgeons had to cut her stomach open, which produced an unsightly surgical scar and was too thick to correct with plastic surgery at the time. Feeling uncomfortable with the look of the six-inch long scar, she decided to cover it with a design that became her signature tattoo.

She moved to San Diego right after high school and soon after graduated from Beauty College.

While growing her business as a professional hair stylist, she was cutting hair for a local news reporter who suggested she try modeling. Over time she became very popular with the Import Tuner scene and was on the covers of twelve magazines.

While attending local acting schools, she began booking infomercials and enjoyed doing background extra work for television shows such as “Las Vegas” and “Greek”. She also began booking lead roles in a number of Music Videos for Xzibit, T.I. and more recently Tyga, Daft Punk, Pharrell and Krewella.

By late 2010 Melissa moved to move to Los Angeles to pursue her acting and modeling career.

She enjoys the benefits of Hollywood having taken classes with Ivana Chubbuck, Lesley Khan, Stuart K. Robertson and Groundlings for Improv.

Melissa continues to book roles for skin care, hair and makeup commercials, as well as lead roles for short films.

Always enjoying new challenges and as a dedicated talented professional, she has a fun, outgoing personality quick to break the ice on set by making people laugh.