Which famous Latina most deserves a biopic?
There are very few Latina biopics, yet plenty of subjects. Which of these famous Latinas would you most like to see a biopic about?
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Isabel Allende is one of today's most important voices of Southern America literature. She was born in Lima, Peru, in 1942, but at the age of 3 she moved to Chile with her mother and two brothers. She spent her childhood there, at her maternal grandparents'home, but she also traveled a lot and lived in different countries, because of the diplomatic career of her step-father. As an adult, she returned to Chile, where she married, had two children and worked as a journalist until 1973. After the military coup of Pinochet she moved to Venezuela and, later, to United States; now she lives in San Rafael, California, with her second husband. Her books are translated in many languages. She writes mostly narrative, but she also wrote short stories for children, humor books, theater plays. Among her books: "The house of the spirits" (adapted into the movie The House of the Spirits (1993)), "Of Love and Shadows" (adapted into the movie Of Love and Shadows (1994)), "Eva Luna", "the Infinite Plain", "Paula" (a book of memories, written during a tragic period, the illness and death of her daughter), and the trilogy of books for young adults, "The City of the Beasts", "Kingdom of the Golden Dragon" and "Forest of the Pygmies", which are in talks to be adapted for the big screen.world's most widely read Spanish-language author- Additional Crew
Michelle Bachelet was born on 29 September 1951 in Santiago de Chile, Metropolitan Region, Chile. She is known for PBS NewsHour (1975), Las sufragistas (2012) and Chile ayuda a Chile (1985). She was previously married to Jorge Dávalos Cartes.former president of Chile- Ingrid Betancourt was born on 25 December 1961 in Bogota, Colombia. She was previously married to Juan-Carlos Lecompte and Fabrice Delloye.Colombian politician and hostage of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia—People's Army (FARC) for several years
- Violeta Chamorro was born on 18 October 1929 in Rivas, Nicaragua. She was previously married to Pedro Joaquin Chamorro Cardenal.former president of Nicaragua
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Celia Cruz was born on 21 October 1925 in Havana, Cuba. She was a music artist and actress, known for Carlito's Way (1993), Amores Perros (2000) and Tower Heist (2011). She was married to Pedro Knight. She died on 16 July 2003 in Fort Lee, New Jersey, USA.Cuban salsa legend- Julia De Burgos was born on 17 February 1914 in Carolina, Puerto Rico. She was a writer, known for Julia: All in Me (2002) and Vida y poesía de Julia de Burgos (1978). She was married to Armando Marín and Ruben Rodrigues Beauchamp. She died on 5 July 1953 in Harlem, Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA.Puerto Rican writer and poet
- Cristina Fernández de Kirchner was born on 19 February 1953 in La Plata, Buenos Aires, Argentina. She was previously married to Néstor Kirchner.president of Argentina
- Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz is known for Teatro de siempre (1966).Mexican nun and writer, one of the few women who dedicated their life to art during the colony
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Gloria Estefan was born on 1 September 1957 in Havana, Cuba. She is a music artist and actress, known for Music of the Heart (1999), Poseidon (2006) and The Specialist (1994). She has been married to Emilio Estefan Jr. since 2 September 1978. They have two children.Cuban-American pop diva- Actress
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Doubtlessly the most famous Mexican movie star, María Félix created a larger-than-life character: herself. La Doña, as the star was known after the character of her 1943 movie Doña Bárbara, starred in 47 movies, most of them forgettable except for her presence in them. More a star than an actress, she constructed an image of a tough woman, a sort of one-liner she-male that went beyond the traditional role of Latin American women. Her marriage to Agustín Lara the most popular Latin composer from the 30s to the 60s, was a great event itself. Her fame went beyond Mexico to Latin America, Spain, France and Italy. She always refused to learn English, so she never acted in any English language movie. That's the main reason why her fame was related almost exclusively to Latin countries. After her last film, she was linked to a number of film projects, but never came back to the screen. Her last performance was on a Mexican historic soap opera, in 1970.- Costume and Wardrobe Department
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Carolina Herrera was born on 8 January 1939 in Caracas, Venezuela. She is a producer, known for The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1 (2011), 212 VIP (2011) and Stanley Marcus Documentary. She has been married to Reinaldo Herrera since 1968. They have two children. She was previously married to Guillermo Behrens Tello.Venezuelan fashion designer- Actress
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Dolores Huerta was born on 10 April 1930 in New Mexico, USA. She is an actress and producer, known for Dolores (2017), Eat the Rainbow (2019) and The Oscars (2018).with Cesar Chavez founded the National Farmworkers Association which became the United Farm Workers (UFW)- Actress
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Well known for her high level of camp and her energetic performances, La Lupe was one of the Spanish-language world's greatest performers. Born in Cuba to a poor family, La Lupe began her life as a schoolteacher in Havana at her father's request. However music was in her blood, and against his wishes she entered a singing competition on the radio where she won first place. Later she joined the singing group "Trio Los Tropicales" and made many successful club debuts throughout Havana. When La Lupe went solo, her performances at Havana's La Red night club caused quite a stir, an impact that leaked slowly to the rest of the island. Overnight La Lupe had become a source if wonderment, controversy and a national celebrity.
Her first recordings, which included Spanish versions of Rock hits by Paul Anka and other American authors, as well as Cuban standards, made the hit parades of radio stations across the country. Her unique voice, combined with extravagant performance antics, made her a smash in the Cuban music scene. However, after the Cuban Revolution of 1959, La Lupe felt that she could no longer live in a country that did not accept her singing style, which was officially classified as anti-revolutionary. She left Cuba for Mexico in 1962, where she sought to relaunch her career, but was never accepted. Later she moved to New York, where she met fellow Cuban musician Mongo Santamaría. Both teamed up with to make the album make "Mongo Introduces La Lupe" in 1963. That album made her a star and later she joined the legendary musician Tito Puente to record four successful albums which confirmed and cemented her enormous popularity.
Voted the best singer by the Latin press in 1965 & 1966, La Lupe went on to become one of the top two divas of salsa music (the other was Celia Cruz). It was during these years that she recorded some of her greatest songs, especially those written by Puerto Rican composer C. Curet Alonso, such as "La Tirana" and "Puro Teatro". In the 1970's La Lupe saw her career decline somewhat. First she was banned from television from Puerto Rico after she tore her clothes off during an awards ceremony on national television. Next, her record label, Tico Records, was purchased by Fania Records, and company executives decided to focus their energies on the less controversial Celia Cruz. Although she had several hits during that decade, she slowly faded into obscurity. In the 1980's, La Lupe, retired from the industry, found herself destitute. Her husband's medical bills, her large donations to the African-based religion of "Santeria", and her personal problems often left her and her family homeless. She became paralyzed following a domestic accident and was healed in a Pentecostal church. After this, she converted to Pentecostalism and recorded Christian oriented material in the late 80s. She continued her faith activities by funding a ministry she named La Lupe in Christ which allowed her to preach to Pentecostal communities until her death in 1992.
La Lupe never saw the surge in her popularity after her death, especially after the legendary Spanish director, Pedro Almodovar chose her song, "Puro Teatro," to be the closing song of his Oscar nominated hit film, "Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown". Fania re-released her recordings on their Tico labels during that decade, and many of her records went platinum throughout Spain and Latin America. Considered by many to be a combination of Bette Midler meets Judy Garland with a dash of Eartha Kitt, La Lupe's largest fan base is primarily the gay Latin community. Many drag performers imitate her and she is considered to be the Judy Garland of the Spanish-language world due to her torrid love affairs, heavy drug use, poor financial management and her bout with bipolar-ism. Doubtless, La Lupe is one of the most remarkable musical divas the world has ever known."the Queen of Latin Soul"- Rigoberta Menchú was born on 9 January 1959 in San Miguel de Uspantan, Guatemala.Guatemalan Nobel Peace Prize fighter for indigenous rights
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Xuxa was born on 27 March 1963 in Santa Rosa, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. She is a music artist and composer, known for Super Xuxa Contra o Baixo Astral (1988), Xuxinha and Guto Against the Space Monsters (2005) and Xuxa e os Duendes (2001).Brazilian actress, presenter, singer and businesswoman- Actress
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Rita Moreno is one of the very few performers to win an Oscar, an Emmy, a Tony and a Grammy, thus becoming an EGOT. She was born Rosita Dolores Alverío in the hospital in Humacao, Puerto Rico on December 11, 1931 (but raised in nearby, smaller Juncos, which had no hospital), to seamstress Rosa María (Marcano) and farmer Francisco José "Paco" Alverío. Her mother moved to New York City in 1937, taking Rita with her while leaving her reportedly unfaithful husband and Rita's younger brother behind. Rita's professional career began before she reached adolescence.
From the age of nine, she performed as a professional dancer in New York night clubs. At age 11, she landed her first movie experience, dubbing Spanish-language versions of US films. Less than a month before her 14th birthday on November 22, 1945, she made her Broadway debut in the play "Skydrift" at the Belasco Theatre, costarring with Arthur Keegan and a young Eli Wallach. Although she would not appear again on Broadway for almost two decades, Rita Moreno, as she was billed in the play, had arrived professionally. In 1950, she was signed by MGM, but the studio dropped her option after just one year.
The cover of the March 1, 1954, edition of "Life Magazine" featured a three-quarters, over-the-left-shoulder profile of the young Puerto Rican actress/entertainer with the provocative title "Rita Moreno: An Actresses' Catalog of Sex and Innocence". It was sexpot time, a stereotype that would plague her throughout the decade. If not cast as a Hispanic pepper pot, she could rely on being cast as another "exotic", such as her appearance on Father Knows Best (1954) as an exchange student from India. Because of a dearth of decent material, Moreno had to play roles in movies that she considered degrading. Among the better pictures she earned featured roles in were the classic Singin' in the Rain (1952) and The King and I (1956).
Director Robert Wise, who was chosen to co-direct West Side Story (1961) (the film version of the smash Broadway musical, a retelling of William Shakespeare's "Romeo & Juliet" with the warring Venetian clans the Montagues and Capulets re-envisioned as Irish/Polish and Puerto Rican adolescent street gangs, the Jets and the Sharks), cast Moreno as "Anita", the Puerto Rican girlfriend of Sharks' leader Bernardo, whose sister Maria is the piece's Juliet.
However, despite her talent, roles commensurate with that talent were not forthcoming in the 1960s. The following decade would prove kinder, possibly because the beautiful Moreno had aged gracefully and could now be seen by filmmakers, TV producers and casting directors as something other than the spitfire/sexpot that Hispanic women were supposed to conform to. Ironically, it was in two vastly diverging roles--that of a $100 hooker in director Mike Nichols' brilliant realization of Jules Feiffer's acerbic look at male sexuality, Carnal Knowledge (1971), and Milly the Helper in the children's TV show The Electric Company (1971)--that signaled a career renaissance.
Moreno won a 1972 Grammy Award for her contribution to "The Electric Company"'s soundtrack album, following it up three years later with a Tony Award as Best Featured Actress in a Musical for "The Ritz" (a role she would reprise in the film version, The Ritz (1976)). She then won Emmy Awards for The Muppet Show (1976) and The Rockford Files (1974).
She has continued to work steadily on screen (both large and small) and on stage, solidifying her reputation as a national treasure, a status that was officially ratified with the award of the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President George W. Bush in June 2004.Puerto Rican EGOT winner- Actress
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As she inherited her love for the arts by her father, well-known playwright, actor, director and novelist Mario Peña, it is not hard to understand that actress Elizabeth Pena already had designs to become an actress by the time she was eight years old.
Born in Elizabeth, New Jersey on September 23, 1959, the petite (5' 2") actress was raised in New York City. Elizabeth's (and sister Tania's) parents, Cuban immigrants Mario and Estella Margarita Peña, would achieve a strong Latino reputation as the founders of the off-Broadway Latin-American Theatre Ensemble. They also encouraged Elizabeth's talent. In 1975, the young teenager became a founding member of the Hispanic Organization of Latin Actors, and two years later graduated from New York's High School of Performing Arts, now the Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music and Art and Performing Arts.
Elizabeth found occasional work in repertory theater and in television commercials. Making her film debut in the independent Spanish-speaking feature El Super (1979), about Cuban refugees, she continued with playing a long line of independent and rebellious characters, which showed plenty of attitude and independence. Playing offbeat roles -- from a knife-threatening waitress to a disco queen -- she appeared in such early films as They All Laughed (1981) and Crossover Dreams (1985). Elizabeth's big break came in the form a support role in the hugely popular and entertaining comedy Down and Out in Beverly Hills (1986), co-starring Bette Midler, Richard Dreyfuss and Nick Nolte, in which she stole several scenes as the sultry, smoky-voiced, politically-minded maid Carmen.
Two consecutive short-lived television series came about around this time. Her first, the ensemble comedy Tough Cookies (1986), had her playing a police officer, and the second was the title housekeeper role in the sitcom I Married Dora (1987). High in demand now, Elizabeth continued to spice up both the big and small screen in such roles as Ritchie Valens' stepsister-in-law in the well-received biopic La Bamba (1987); a drug enforcement agent in the miniseries Drug Wars: The Camarena Story (1990); PTSD-suffering Tim Robbins' live-in girlfriend in the complex drama Jacob's Ladder (1990); and a dedicated legal secretary on the corporate drama series Shannon's Deal (1990) starring Jamey Sheridan.
Honors also came Elizabeth's way when she received the Independent Spirit and Bravo awards for the film Lone Star (1996), and four ALMA Awards for her performances in the television movie Contagious (1997), the films Tortilla Soup (2001) and Rush Hour (1998), and her regular role on the Latino drama series Resurrection Blvd. (2000).
Into the millennium, Elizabeth found steady employment on television with guest roles on Boston Public (2000), CSI: Miami (2002), Without a Trace (2002), Numb3rs (2005), Ghost Whisperer (2005), Charlie's Angels (2011), Prime Suspect (2011), Common Law (2012), and Modern Family (2009). One of her last roles was on the television series Matador (2014). She also found herself further down the credits in films such as On the Borderline (2001), Transamerica (2005), The Lost City (2005), Mother and Child (2009), The Perfect Family (2011), Plush (2013), and Grandma (2015). Three other films -- Girl on the Edge (2015), Ana Maria in Novela Land (2015), and The Song of Sway Lake (2018) -- were released posthumously. She also provided a voice in the popular Disney/Pixar animated film The Incredibles (2004).
A chronic alcohol problem severely hampered Elizabeth's life and she died suddenly from cirrhosis of the liver in Los Angeles, California on October 14, 2014, at age 55. She was survived by her second husband (from 1994), Hans Rolla, and their two children, son Kælan and daughter Fiona.Cuban-American actress and director- Dilma Rousseff is the 36th President of Brazil, and the first woman to hold the office. Daughter of a Bulgarian immigrant father and a brazilian schoolteacher mother, Rousseff was raised in an upper middle class household in Belo Horizonte. She became a socialist during her youth, and following the 1964 coup d'état joined various left-wing and Marxist urban guerrilla groups that fought against the military dictatorship. Rousseff was captured and jailed between 1970 and 1972 and reportedly tortured.president of Brazil
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Born January 29, 1948 in Havana, Cuba, young Cristina was brought up in the strict image of her grandfather, magazine publisher Don Francisco Saralegui, known throughout Latin America as "The Paper Czar". He introduced her to journalism. In 1960, at the age of 11, she left Castro's Cuba to start anew in Miami's Cuban exile community. She attended the University of Miami, majoring in mass communications and creative writing, while beginning an internship with Vanidades, the #1 women's magazine in Latin America. As she had received all of her formal training in English, she then had to teach herself how to write in Spanish, which, according to her, "proved to be a great challenge".
In 1979, while still working for three of the most successful magazines published in Latin America, Cristina was named Editor-in-Chief of the internationally distributed Cosmopolitan en Español, the Spanish-language version of the Hearst magazine Cosmopolitan, which was circulated in all Latin American countries in addition to the United States. Cristina held this position for ten years until she resigned to become Executive Producer and host of "El Show de Cristina". With the success of her Spanish-language television show, Pa'lante con Cristina (1989), she decided to test the waters of the English-speaking market by hosting and producing (in association with CBS Television Group) The Cristina Show (1997) in English.
During the summer of 1992, her TV show aired for a limited 13 week run. The show, distributed nationally by Columbia Pictures Television, generated very respectable ratings in addition to receiving favorable reaction from the press. Cristina was president of CSE Productions, had her own line of fashionable eyewear and her own magazine, and is an active celebrity in AIDS research and education. She and Univision parted ways around 2010, and she now lives a private life with her husband and former manager, Marcos Avila, a former musician and a founding member of the The Miami Sound Machine. The couple have three children and reside in Miami Beach."the Latina Oprah"- Sonia Sotomayor was born on 25 June 1954 in Bronx, New York City, New York, USA. She was previously married to Kevin Edward Noonan.third female justice and first Latino on the Supreme Court
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Lupe Velez was born on July 18, 1908, in San Luis Potosi, Mexico, as Maria Guadalupe Villalobos Velez. She was sent to Texas at the age of 13 to live in a convent. She later admitted that she wasn't much of a student because she was so rambunctious. She had planned to become a champion roller skater, but that would change. Life was hard for her family, and Lupe returned to Mexico to help them out financially. She worked as a salesgirl for a department store for the princely sum of $4 a week. Every week she would turn most of her salary over to her mother, but she kept a little for herself so she could take dancing lessons. With her mature shape and grand personality, she thought she could make a try at show business, which she figured was a lot more glamorous than dancing or working as a salesclerk. In 1924 Lupe started her show business career on the Mexican stage and wowed audiences with her natural beauty and talent. By 1927 she had emigrated to Hollywood, where she was discovered by Hal Roach, who cast her in a comedy with Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy. Douglas Fairbanks then cast her in his feature film The Gaucho (1927) with himself and wife Mary Pickford. Lupe played dramatic roles for five years before she switched to comedy. In 1933 she played the lead role of Pepper in Hot Pepper (1933). This film showcased her comedic talents and helped her to show the world her vital personality. She was delightful. In 1934 Lupe appeared in three fine comedies: Strictly Dynamite (1934), Palooka (1934) and Laughing Boy (1934). By now her popularity was such that a series of "Mexican Spitfire" films were written around her. She portrayed Carmelita Lindsay in Mexican Spitfire (1939), Mexican Spitfire Out West (1940), The Mexican Spitfire's Baby (1941) and Mexican Spitfire's Blessed Event (1943), among others. Audiences loved her in these madcap adventures, but it seemed at times that she was better known for her stormy love affairs. She married one of her lovers, Johnny Weissmuller, but the marriage only lasted five years and was filled with battles. Lupe certainly did live up to her nickname. She had a failed romance with Gary Cooper, who never wanted to wed her. By 1943 her career was waning. She went to Mexico in the hopes of jump-starting her career. She gained her best reviews yet in the Mexican version of Naná (1944). Bolstered by the success of that movie, Lupe returned to the US, where she starred in her final film as Pepita Zorita, Ladies' Day (1943). There were to be no others. On December 13, 1944, tired of yet another failed romance, with a part-time actor named Harald Maresch, and pregnant with his child, Lupe committed suicide with an overdose of Seconal. She was only 36 years old.Mexican-American actress