The daughter of a
Florentine father and of an
American mother, Machiavelli was a descendant of the political philosopher and historian
Niccolò Machiavelli. She studied painting at the
Accademia di Belle Arti di Firenze. Following an audition for the role of Eva in
John Huston's
The Bible: In the Beginning..., she was noted by the producer
Dino De Laurentiis who put her under contract for seven years, a contract she eventually broke after three years. Her first role was
Ugo Tognazzi's wife in
A Question of Honour, and following a few comedies, her early career was characterized by genre films, mainly
spaghetti Western, notably
Sergio Corbucci's
Navajo Joe. She eventually moved to
Seattle, Washington, where among other things she taught Italian at the
Bellevue College and at the
University of Washington. ==Selected filmography==