Whatever Happened to WCW’s Marie?

Posted on April 20, 2021 by bdamage1

Brian Damage

Now I know many of you may be asking the question….WHO?!? That is completely understandable, as I did the same thing when I saw a picture of her. Granted, this is during a time when World Championship Wrestling was really faltering. Marie was around during late 2000, so you can imagine just how bad of shape the company was in all around.

The storyline that Marie was involved in during that period of time is a perfect example of how messed up thing were in WCW. She started appearing at ringside for matches and the camera would innocently pan to her at different times. It was later revealed that this mysterious woman at ringside was dating a wrestler named ‘Reno’ who was a member of The Natural Born Thrillers faction. The kicker was that this woman whose name was revealed to be ‘Marie,’ was actually the little sister to wrestler Big Vito.

That ignited a feud between Reno and Vito, as Vito was the overprotective older Italian brother. Somewhere between that point and later on…the storyline drastically changed. Maybe because WCW creative figured that fans weren’t really paying attention at that point. Whatever the case was, Marie went from being the sister to Big Vito and a love interest to Reno….to all of a sudden….Reno and Big Vito being brothers.

So by that logic, Vito and Reno were fighting for the affections of their own sister? Perhaps, or maybe Vito was angry that his brother and sister were fooling around. We do know that Vince Russo loved to write incest angles, but I think this was just a time that he and creative just decided to go in a completely different direction. In any case, Big Vito and Reno were now brothers and their sister Marie was their valet.

That partnership would disintegrate at Starrcade 2000 (The Final WCW Starrcade ever) when Reno turned on his brother Big Vito and reigniting their feud. When WCW went out of business and was sold to WWE, Marie was not brought on board as was the case with several WCW talents. From all indications, that is where Marie’s wrestling career ended.

So, the question remains….whatever happened to Marie? For a number of years, some fans have speculated just exactly who Marie was. The biggest misconception from fans was that Marie was portrayed by independent pro wrestler/valet Noel Harlow aka Noel LoGrasso (Big Vito’s real life wife) Noel quickly put the kibosh on that as she was still a teenager during that period of time. Harlow’s career didn’t start until two years later in 2002.

The truth is, Marie was actually a woman named Dina De Stefano. She was an aspiring model/actress/wrestler who trained in WCW’s Power Plant based in Georgia. De Stefano was from New Jersey and was the mother of three children. It was reported that Dina passed away, however, her mother confirmed she is alive and well and living a very quiet life now.