Sofia Milos life and biography

Sofia Milos is an Italian/Greek actress. She is best known for her role as Yelina Salas on CSI: Miami.
Sofia Milos is best known as a TV actress, having appeared on top-rated programs in the U.S. and Italy. Her guest appearances on hit shows like Friends, Mad About You and Caroline in the City familiarized her with audiences in the latter half of the '90s, but it was her role as Italian crime boss Annalisa Zucca on The Sopranos in 2000 that raised her up to another level of mainstream recognition.

Her mixed Italian and Greek parentage has allowed her access to those two sizable communities in the U.S. In 2002, Milos was a member of the Los Angeles Italian Film Awards' jury. In May of 2004, she received an Artistic Achievement Award from the Hellenic Times Scholarship Fund Gala in New York City.

Earlier in 2004, Sofia was a presenter at the Annual CCHR (Citizens Commission on Human Rights) Awards Gala in Beverly Hills. In a speech made at the ceremony, she spoke of the damaging effects of psychiatric drugs on children, and offered alternative solutions to helping children with problems.

Milos was born in Zurich, Switzerland, to an Italian father and a Greek mother. In her teens she entered a local beauty pageant, and after winning first prize went on to win the provincial, regional and national contests as well. Milos studied acting at the Beverly Hills Playhouse in the United States under acting coach Milton Katselas. Milos is a member of the Church of Scientology.
Milos speaks English, Italian, French and German (including Swiss German) fluently, and can also carry a basic conversation in Greek and Spanish.

Milos began modeling when she was 15 and worked in major fashion capitals like Milan, Paris, New York, Tokyo, and Munich. She used some of the money she earned to pay for an education in business and economics in Switzerland, and began designing and selling her own clothing when she was 19.
In 1990, Milos moved to New York City and shortly thereafter relocated to Los Angeles. She took acting classes at the Beverly Hills Playhouse, and found work in local theatrical productions until she landed her debut movie role in the indie film Out of Control (1992).

In 1993, she was cast as Fabiana Borelli, an Italian model living in Paris in the NBC sitcom, Cafe Americain. The show was canceled in 1994, and she turned up as a guest star on several TV series over the next couple of years, including Platypus Man (Paramount), Vanishing Son (NBC) and Weird Science (USA).

Milos gained huge exposure playing Aurora, Matthew Perry's love interest, in a 1994 episode of NBC's Friends called "The One with the Butt." She played Sarah, "the other woman," in the 1996 season finale of Mad About You (NBC), had a recurring role as Richard's sexy Italian wife Julia on NBC's Caroline in the City during that show's 1997-'98 season, and played Claudia, a bar owner, on ABC's short-lived The Secret Lives Of Men in 1998.

Milos returned to the big screen with an appearance in the parody Jane Austen's Mafia! (1998), as a young Olympia Dukakis, and portrayed a would-be assassin who's smothered by an overly affectionate Mel Brooks in the 1999 comedy, Screw Loose. In 2000, she appeared opposite former SNL cast member Tim Meadows in The Ladies Man, and was also featured in Family Jewels.

Milos was cast in the recurring role of Annalisa Zucca on HBO's The Sopranos, marking her first appearance as the Neapolitan mob boss in an episode called "Commendatori," which first aired in February 2000.

She got to improvise all of her dialogue as Richard Lewis' girlfriend in several episodes of HBO's Curb Your Enthusiasm later that same year.

In 2001, Milos landed yet another recurring TV role, playing "Paulie the Hitwoman" on ABC's Thieves. That same year saw her starring opposite William Baldwin in the HBO made-for-TV movie Double Bang, in which she portrayed a young widow.

She traveled to Bulgaria and Israel to film The Order (2001), where she played a tough Israeli cop alongside Jean-Claude Van Damme and Charlton Heston. She co-starred as a possessive Italian-American woman in the Italian miniseries, Lo Zio d'America (The Uncle from America) (2002), which became one of the TV season's biggest hits in Italy.

In January 2003, Milos guest starred on NBC's hit hospital drama ER, playing the overzealous wife of a 93-year-old man. In February, she made her debut as Detective Yelina Salas, a regular role on CBS's top-rated CSI: Miami, which stars Emily Procter and David Caruso.

Sofia Milos' next big screen appearance came in the romantic comedy Passionada (2003), where she played Celia Amonte, a Portuguese fado singer. In 2004, she was cast as the owner of an editing company in another Italian miniseries for RAI Television, entitled Part Time.

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