Felissa Rose Esposito was born on May 23, 1969 at the St. Vincent's Hospital in Greenwich Village, NYC. When she was three her family moved to Woodbury, Long Island. Felissa always wanted to be an entertainer and her mother was very involved in her life taking her for lessons from when she was 3 for dance, musical theatre, etc...

She was always in the drama club, Forensics (the speech and debate club), girls volleyball, and summer stock (the summer musicals). She always wanted to do musical theatre but changed her mind when she realised she didn't have a good singing voice.

As a child she went to Catholic school first with Our Lady of Mercy Academy for 2 years and then with Syosset High School for 4 years and performed in many of her musical school plays mostly lead roles in just about all of them.

She signed up with an agent and auditioned for the musical 'Annie' but never received a callback but at the age of 13, she auditioned for the part of the shy Angela for the horror/slasher film 'Sleepaway Camp' for the audition she did a little improv and the director/writer, Robert Hiltzik asked her to pretend that she was eating a candy bar and just to completely stare into space. After she had the call back she felt confident and knew she got the part, but her mother advised her not to be too confident cause acting is a tough business to get into. But she got the part as Felissa was just who Robert Hiltzik wanted for his film and was introduced to the world as Angela when it went to Cinema's on November of 1983.

After that film she auditioned for non-horror film's and came real close to getting the parts but however didn't successfully get them as in showbiz sometimes casting directors can't see anyone else play just horror type character's from the film she was in.

However, she pursued professional theatre by doing off-Broadway shows. She was especially active in the Forensics (speech and debate club) as well as participating in the dramatic interpretation section. She traveled extensively with that club throughout highschool and won the New York State Championship Award in her junior year.

At the age of seventeen she applied an early submission to the Tisch School of the Arts at the New York University and was admitted that fall.

She appeared in TV commercials including 'Kinney Shoes' (with Barbara Mandrell), 'Coke Classic', 'Pepsi', 'Tide' and 'Pillsbury' as well as many industrials throughout her teens and early twenties.

She was asked to reprise her role as Angela in the 'Sleepaway Camp' sequels for 6 months in Georgia in 1987, but she was attending the Lee Strasberg Institute and turned the roles down. Struggling actor at the time, Adam Sandler, also studied there and they became friends for a while and together did a short comedy on MTV called 'The Party Phone Series'. She also took some training to break into the business as an actress.

She had bit parts in the films 'The Night We Never Met' and Woody Allen's 'Another Woman' (Which both her scenes were cut out) and 'Pain and Suffering' (Which is apparently obscure)

She acted in many plays around Manhattan afterwards. Felissa at one point acted in a stage show that was directed by stage director Bill Primavera and then they wed on July 5, 1997 and she acted in many of his Off-Broadway shows as she played Desdemona in 'Othello', Denise Savage in 'Savage in Limbo', Renee in 'Madamme Butterfly' (Which was performed in Florida), Willie in 'This Property is Condemned' as well as Karen in the premiere of 'Phone Sex' and two roles in dinner theatre productions Nikki in 'Tony N' Tina's Wedding' and Louise in 'Disorganised Crime', as well as many others.

Felissa and Bill's marriage started to dissolve on December 14, 2001 but 'Sleepaway Camp' was starting to grow into a cult-classic as alot of horror film directors started looking for her to cast her in their independent film's.
She played Delores in a 15 minute short independent horror-thriller called 'Birds of a Feather' which also featured cult actor Christopher Cooke. The film played at the Long Island Film Festival in New York which was a start for her. According to director Terrence Smith, only a handful of people saw the film and never realised that it would be a stepping stone for more work in the horror industry for Felissa.
Then she was cast as a psychotic Art Therapist in Dante Tomaselli's feature film 'Horror' and although her role was only a few minutes long her character in the flick was extremely effective and she got alot of exposure for it in horror magazines and websites while it rode the film festival circuit and then was distributed on DVD by Elite Entertainment. Following after that, she had a lead role in a chapter of a horror/comedy anthology as Sarah in 'Scary Tales: The Return of Mr. Longfellow' which had a handful of showings at film festivals in the US and a few years later it finally made became independently available to DVD.
Next was the part of Sandra Kane in a film called 'Nikos the Impaler' as it did well at horror film festivals in parts of Europe and on DVD too.
She then had supporting roles as Melissa in the dark comedy 'Zombiegeddon' which was shown in some underground venues and Gina in the horror spy flick 'Corpses Are Forever' that played at the New New Film & Video Festival and starred a handful of B-movie celebrity actors including Richard Lynch, Brinke Stevens, Debbie Rochon, Linnea Quigley, Conrad Brooks and Don Calfa.
What recently rode the local film festival in the USA were series of comedy/sci-fi shorts and features titled 'Cerebral Print' as Felissa plays an MILF named Carolyn.

Felissa worked again with Dante Tomaselli by playing the lead as the scared victim Donna Bruno in 'Satan's Playground' which rode some film festivals including San Francisco's SF IndieFest/Another Hole in the Head. The movie is distributed by Anchor Bay Entertainment and came out in the fall of 2006.

Felissa took part in a gay & lesbian horror/comedy titled 'Dead Serious' as the role of Susan Rosario who is caught up with her boyfriend in the ensuing mayhem at a New York city gay bar that's inhabited by vampires as well as being taken over by a puritanical televangelist and his group of right-wing terrorists. The film is having a huge success in numerous film festivals like at The Titanic Film Festival in Budapest, Hungary, the Brussels International Gay & Lesbian Film Festival, The New York City Horror Film Festival, at the TriBeCa Cinema in NYC., The Hollywood Film Festival™ & Hollywood Awards at the Arclight Theater and the Reel Affirmations Film Festival, Washington DC. Not only that, the film was nominated for two B-movie awards for the "Best Make-Up" and "Best Digital Special Effects" categories at Syracuse's B-Movie Film Festival!  The film is awaiting distribution for a DVD release.

What is out now that's selling nationwide as well as renting at storers is the slapstick Troma Team comedy-horror slasher flick 'Slaughter Party' as Felissa co-star's as a character named Tara who is pitted against a midget killer and a cannibalistic mad scientist but the film is a total flop.

She has also won cameo roles in the horror film's 'Sludge' and in 'Evil Ever After' which are in post-production and will hopefully be released either at film festivals or on DVD. She also worked as a casting assistant on 'Return to Sleepaway Camp'

Felissa has hosted a TV show for Fangoria TV by interviewing actors and reviewing films plus she starred in a pilot which will hopefully be aired for prime time TV titled 'The Scream'.

Nowadays she moved in between New York and California. She has become a cult favourite to horror fans because of her work in 'Sleepaway Camp'.

She also remarried CKY frontman rocker Deron Miller (Whom was a fan of her film 'Sleepaway Camp' and based his band named off the film which CKY is short for Camp Kill Yourself) as they share two children.

Although I'm not wild over her as an actress I had to do a review on her since she was so freaky in 'Sleepaway Camp' and always wondered what other types of roles she did so I bought her other horror films.

Birthdate: May 23, 1969

Star Sign: Gemini

Birthplace: Greenwich Village, NYC

Parents: Thomas and Joan Esposito

Siblings: 1 brother, Frank and my sister in law, Melissa

Family Background: Italian

Height: 5' 4"

Weight: 109 pounds

Hair Colour: dark brown

Eyes: Dark Brown

Education:

• Baylis Elementary School 6 Years

• Our Lady of Mercy 2 Years

• Syosset High School 4 Years

• New York University, Tisch School of the Arts
  Received BFA

• The Lee Strasberg Institute

Marital Status: Divorced was married to stage director Bill Primavera for 4 years.

Favourite Foods: Japanese and Italian

Hobbies: Exercise, Computer, Reading, Relaxing

Favourite Sports: Basket ball, Hockey and Baseball

Favourite Colours: Red, Cranberry and Dark Blue

Favourite Clothing: BeBe

Favourite Music: All kinds such as jazz, rock, pop, rap, alternative etc....

Favourite Actors/Actresses: Kevin Spacey, Sean Penn

Favourite Actresses: Mercedes Ruehl, Meryl Streep

Favourite Movies: The Godfather, Silence of the Lambs, Tootsie, Spinal Tap, The Shining.

Favourite TV show: Cheers

Favourite Books: Seth Speaks, Bridge Across Forever, Jonathan Livingston Seagull, Seat of the Soul.

Favourite Countries: Hawaii and Italy

Favourite Director: Martin Scorsese

Favourite Writer: Shakespeare

Favourite Music Act: CKY

Favourite Performance: Mercedes Ruehl in Lost in Yonkers on Broadway

Worst Performance: There isn't one, actors do their best

Favourite Animals: Cats

Pets: 4 Beautiful Cats

Pet Peeve: Call waiting (I don't have it) and people talking really loudly on their cell phones in public places.

Motto: Don't Sweat the small stuff

Ambitions: Inner Strength, Inner Peace and being O.K. with Judgement

First Acting Gig: Sleepaway Camp

Sleepaway Camp Yesss! The film that made her a horror film actress! She was so damn believable at such a young age of 13 years old to play the role she played. The shy and disturbed Angela who went to a summer camp and was always being put-upon by kids. However, they end up getting killed for their nastiness. She didn't have alot to say in this film but there was no need to as she brought this character to life. She did a perfect job with her long staring. Her ending with that freaky face was so memorable to fans and non fans. Apparently she was nothing like her character and socialised too much with her fellow actors. She admitted that she had alot of fun in the film and her mother was like her manager in a way. She told Hiltzik that he didn't want Felissa to have her hands used during the murders as she thought it would be too disturbing for her at a young age. Instead her co-star Jonathan Tiersten's hands were used. It was hard for young Felissa to get work in other films that were non-horror. When the film came to DVD after the millenium Felissa Rose did the commentary for the film along with writer/director Robert Hiltzik and Official webmaster Jeff Hayes. They had a good time with it and briefly mentioned the upcoming 'Return to Sleepaway Camp'. She also attened many horror events and reunions because of this film.

Birds of a Feather This was a start to Felissa career in horror films. She plays a killer in this on too. The film was only 15 minutes long and played at the Long Island Film Festival in New York which only a handful of people went to see it. Apparently the film was shot on two very intense days. Felissa's last name on the film was credited as Primavera which was her ex-husband's last name to whom she was married to and acted in his stage shows. Also, she apparently didn't get along with her former actress in the film who's name was Danielle Il Grande but Felissa kills her in the end of the film. She must've felt good about that! Of course this film is about a paranoid wife who thinks her husband is going to kill her due to his temperment. The film was average with just an average plot.

Grandma's Secret Recipe This was a cheesy slapstick 30 minute horror flick made by Jeff Hayes from www.sleepawaycampmovies.com and using his real family members to be in the film. The story is about a stuck up college student moves in with her Grandma due to noisy construction work at her house so she can find a quiet place to study for her exams. Her grandmother tries to make her feel as welcome as possible offering her goodies of all kinds. Her granddaughter finds this annoying and tries to make her leave her alone. But good ole Granny still keeps on trying as she shows her granddaughter a photo album of her past life. The granddaughter mouths her off and insults her. Grandma snaps and repeatedly stabs her granddaughter with an ice pick. Then Granny manipluates her son to bury her in the backyard. Can a secret really be kept? Felissa comes on towards the ending of the flick as a news reporter named Angie Angel which Jeff shot her scenes in Texas after her and Robert Hiltzik were supporting a theater that was opening and it was screening 'Sleepaway Camp'. Hiltzik had a cameo in the film which Felissa's character was questioning about his neighbor slaughtering her granddaughter and son. 'GSR' rode a film festival in Chicago with a double bill of 'Sleepaway Camp'. A sequel is in the making and Felissa reprises her role and she was on the same grounds with her scenes when she was helping out with 'Return to Sleepaway Camp' along with Jeff Hayes.

Horror Felissa has a cameo in this one but an effective one. She plays an art therapist. At first she seems sweet and angelic like when she talks to one of her clients which is in a drug rehab towards the end of the film. Next scene the client goes into a hospital room where gruesome and terrifying events are happening. Felissa's character runs into the room and she acts monstrous just like her ending scene in 'Sleepaway Camp' as the story was about a bunch of kids escaping from a rehab and are encountering evil around them. Felissa received exposure for this film even before and after it's release on magazines and horror events. It rode at many film festivals and won Best Cinematography at The New York Horror Film Festival. It then was distributed by Elite Entertainment which was an amazon top 10 bestseller under different horror categories. 'Horror' was also, for one week in 2003, # 7 on the IMDb-Pro, out of all the movies. Writer/director Dante Tomaselli is a big fan of 70's and early 80's which he tries to bring it back with his films by hiring actors from those horror flicks. However, he makes his stories very different than any other horror film which makes him a cult item. Felissa gained a good friendship with Dante and is acting in his future projects but this time she is having lead roles in them. The reason why she had a cameo in this film was because it had been already cast when she submitted her resume to Dante so he found a small role for her during the last minute.

Nikos This time Felissa plays one of the lead roles as a University teacher's girlfriend named Sandra Kane. Of course they're running away from an ancient mutant barbarian named Nikos who has returned from the dead and is slaughtering people at a museum. Felissa wasn't particularly proud of this film as it was rushed and she didn't have enough time to concentrate on her character. She doesn't talk alot about this flick. The film had lots of slaptick type horror and it also mainly focused on the gore throughout the film. This was the goriest film I've seen in fact. The film was shown at many horror film festivals in parts of Europe like at FEAR IN NURNMBERG, THE INDEPENDENT DAYS KARLSRUHE and THE SPLATTERDAY NIGHT FEVER SAARBRUECKEN. All with about 200-500 seats, fully packed with gore hounds. About a month later the film was self distributed on DVD and sold well on the Nikos official site. The film to me was like a bad spoof on 'Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan' with many cameos by trashy b-film actors. This film was made on a Z-grade budget.

Corpses Are Forever Felissa has a supporting role and is in this film for about only 5 minutes. It's about the gates of hell that was accidentally opened and the dead is walking the earth. Felissa plays a character named Gina who was bitten by a zombie and slowly is turning into one. Felissa's death scene looked very fake. According to writer/director Jose Prendes, him and his company stopped shooting her scene at one point as they thought Felissa was really in pain. The cast featured many b-film actors too. It went to many film festivals and then was eventually released on DVD. It's now available to buy and rent at Blockbuster. I found this flick a tribute to George A. Romero's Living Dead flicks although the film was made on a very low budget and many of the outdoor scenes weren't on a closed set cause you could see some cars driving by and people outside.

Scary Tales: The Return of Mr. Longfellow A neat cheesy horror anthology as Felissa has one of the leads in a chapter titled 'Dennis Frye Vs. the Zombies'. She plays the role of Sarah who dates a wimpy employee named Dennis Frye at a corner store who is bullied by a gang called the Zombies but a strange man enters the store with these special candy bars that turns Dennis into a hero and the gang into living dead zombies. It is a classic battle as Sarah and Dennis battle the zombies. Felissa has descent timing at being funny and adventurous. The chapter reminded me of the TV series 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' but with zombies in it. The whole film was very 'Twilight Zone/Tales from the Crypt' type of feel. Rode at a handful of film festivals and a few years later went to DVD. Rumors float around that Felissa was not proud of her work in this one.

Zombiegeddon A student film by Chris Watson and not a great one with lots of bad acting and directing and made on a terrible budget but has lots of bloody gore effects. The film was shown in a few underground venues before being released onto DVD by Troma Team a few years later. It can be fun to watch if you're in the mood for it but if not you need to avoid it. At first you wonder if this is a comedy-horror like 'Shaun of the Dead' but instead it's jusrt a plain zany comedy trying to use 'South Park' humor in a bad way but using horror elements like the gore and flesh eating zombies. It all starts out when a lady named Laura Reynolds (Brinke Stevens) goes to a radio station to talk about Lucifer, otherwise Lord Zombie (William Smith) wanting to take over the world with zombies while two redneck cops who stir trouble for others are encountering this madness and tries to help the matters out. Felissa gets involved during the middle of this film in a highschool gymasium as a cheerleader named Melissa so her and her friends go with the police to hide out in a house but however Melissa is slowly realising that her cheerleader friends are becoming zombie's themselves. Although Felissa isn't a great actress herself she seems to perform better than most others. There are a few exceptions in the film too like Brinke, Robert Z'Dar, Jeff Dylan Graham and a cameo by Edwin Neal.

Under Surveillance Felissa had a good supporting role in this one as the film started shooting for a long time in 2001 and post-production took a few years to finish up. The story is a mystery-thriller of a group of residents living in an apartment and there is a killer leading a cult and it can be any of the residents as the killer was responsible for murders years before the apartment was made for the residents. A group of people decides to store hidden camera inside each suite so they can try and spot the going's on at the apartment as the place is run by abusive husband's partygoers and sleazy residents. Felissa plays the role of Heidi Broonen who has a sleazy and arrogant attitude and lives with her mentally disturbed sister who tried to commit suicide and was just out of a psych ward. Heidi doesn't treat her sister too well and always brings a different guy home and asks her sister to go out and do an errand while she does so. She worked with some of the same cast members in this film in her previous film roles which is very interesting. The film had a few public screenings and will hopefully be put on to DVD soon.

Slaughter Party Felissa has the lead role named Tara in this awful, corny, slapstick comedy/horror made for DVD as a sister of someone who was slaughtered by a midget killer named Craig (Played by Mighty Mike Murga who is god awful in his role) who is still grieving her death but ends up going to a lesbian bikini party but nearby is a lab where Craig's master resides. His master is a cannibalistic mad scientist named the Doctor (Ford Austin) who collects body parts and guts. Eventually all of Tara's friends are slaughtered and then Tara is kidnapped and tied up as well as being mamed by the Doctor in his lab. I can't believe I wasted 20 dollars on this crappy DVD. This is probably Troma Team at their worst financing. The story was originally written by Chris Watson as he made it look like a 'Slumber Party Massacre' type slasher flick but instead is was rewritten by someone else and unfortunately the story had no relation to that type of genre which was really sad. There is no budget to this flick plus the acting is terrible and the killings are so phony it's not even funny. Felissa does well at freaking out but of course that's about it. Making this flick however was an awful waste of time. There are also pointless cameos by porn superstar Ron Jeremy, Troma Team president Lloyd Kaufman and scream queen Brinke Stevens.

Trite this Way Like 'Under Surveillance', This one was another film that took a very long time to be released but will be on DVD this summer. Felissa hosts this piece as she introduces herself and said that she was the original Angela Baker in 'Sleepaway Camp' and then introduces the story. The story isn't really a story as there doesn't seem to be a proper plot to it. There are scenes of sex, anger, fighting, racism and wild parties but how to explain them is almost impossible. Felissa is involved with some of the scenes in this film as well as narrating it. She puts alot of pizazz in the film and I remember a scene while someone is jump roping she is constantly yelling "EX-PLOI-TA-TION!!!!" but of course the story is very poor.

Satans Playground Well Felissa had a cameo in Dante's last film 'Horror' but this time she has the lead as Donna Bruno which marks to be her best performance so far which isn't saying alot. Of course her role is a nagging wife while her husband Frank (Salvatore Paul Piro) is almost asleep on the wheel driving in the gloomy woods while her, her sister Cheryl (Played by Evil Dead actress Ellen Sandweiss) and her baby, along with her mentally challenged son Sean (Played by Tomaselli favourite Danny Lopes) on a camping trip. However their car gets stuck and Frank looks for help but ends up getting slaughtered when he meets up with an old woman named Mrs. Leeds (Irma St. Paule) and so Felissa's character tries to look for him and get help too. Instead she is drugged and then kidnapped and badly tormented. Felissa's intensity is amazing in this film but she hardly shows any expressions with her character and it looks poor. The film was well done and a good descent budget for an indie film but the story doesn't make alot of sense and sometimes you wonder to yourself what is the point to this film? However, Dante really brought back the roots of retro horror film from the 70's and 80's with this one and also cast 'Texas Chainsaw Massacre' co-star Edwin Neal as a demented retarded mute son of Mrs. Leeds. Plus there is a small role by Ron Millkie who had a small part in the very first 'Friday the 13th' flick as an officer and plays an officer in this one as well and has some similarities to both these roles he's played. This film for sure will help out Felissa's acting career in a good way in future horror flicks and the same with Sandweiss and Neal.