Lupe Ontiveros

Guadalupe Moreno was born on September 17, 1942, in El Paso, Texas, the daughter of Luz "Lucita" Castañón and Juan Moreno, middle-class Mexican immigrants who overcame a lack of formal education to become owners of a tortilla factory and two restaurants in El Paso.{{cite news |last=Navarro |first=Mireya |date=July 27, 2012 |title=Lupe Ontiveros, Who Portrayed Maids and Moms, Dies at 69 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/28/arts/television/lupe-ontiveros-69-desperate-housewives-actress-dies.html |access-date=July 28, 2012 |newspaper=The New York Times}} Lupe was raised Roman Catholic[http://www.cinesnob.net/archives/lupe-ontiveros-tortilla-heaven "Lupe Ontiveros – Tortilla Heaven"], CineSnob.net, June 6, 2008 and graduated from El Paso High School and went on to study at Texas Woman's University in Denton, Texas, where she received a bachelor's degree in social work in 1964.

After marrying Elías Ontiveros in 1966, the couple moved to California to realize his dream of starting an automotive business. During a period of dissatisfaction with her career as a social worker, Ontiveros was trying to decide whether to go back to school for a nursing degree when she saw an article about a need for local film extras. With her husband's encouragement, Ontiveros took the job and parlayed it into a long stage and screen career. Prior to acting, she had worked for 18 years as a social worker, and Ontiveros continued as an activist with many of the same causes with which she worked in that profession, such as domestic violence prevention and AIDS awareness and prevention.{{cite news|url=https://www.reuters.com/article/entertainment-us-lupeontiveros-idUSBRE86R00R20120728|title=Latina actress Lupe Ontiveros dies, age 69|date=July 27, 2012|publisher=Reuters|access-date=July 28, 2012}}

Ontiveros once estimated that she had played a maid at least 150 times on stage and screen;Mireya Navarro, "[https://mobile.nytimes.com/2002/05/16/movies/trying-get-beyond-role-maid-hispanic-actors-are-seen-underrepresented-with.html Trying to get beyond the role of maid]", The New York Times, May 16, 2002. Ontiveros wanted to see more diverse roles available to Latina actors, noting: "I'm proud to represent those hands that labor in this country. I've given every maid I've ever portrayed soul and heart."[https://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/16/movies/trying-get-beyond-role-maid-hispanic-actors-are-seen-underrepresented-with.html "Trying to Get Beyond the Role of the Maid; Hispanic Actors Are Seen as Underrepresented, With the Exception of One Part", The New York Times, May 16, 2002] In part because of her history in this role, Ontiveros was chosen as the narrator for the documentary Maid in America.[http://www.maidinamericathedoc.com/maidinamerica.html Official site: Maid in America] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060614170555/http://www.maidinamericathedoc.com/maidinamerica.html |date=June 14, 2006 }}

One of her most prominent early film roles was in the 1983 Gregory Nava film El Norte, in which Ontiveros played a seamstress and maid who acts as mentor to a newly arrived immigrant girl from Guatemala. In a 2004 interview with the Dominican newspaper Listin Diario, Ontiveros called El Norte "the film that always will remain in me... [it] tells the immigrants' story" when asked to name her favorite film from her long career.{{cite web|url=http://www.listindiario.com.do/antes/marzo04/010304/cuerpos/espectaculos/esp1.htm |title=El dinero es la differencia entre Hollywood y el cine |access-date=August 17, 2013 |url-status=bot: unknown |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20040908042400/http://www.listindiario.com.do/antes/marzo04/010304/cuerpos/espectaculos/esp1.htm |archive-date=September 8, 2004 }} Listen, March 1, 2004 (in Spanish) Ontiveros played the housekeeper, Rosalita, a Spanish-speaking maid hired to assist in the packing and moving of the Walsh family in the hit adventure film The Goonies (1985) and a housekeeper in Dolly Dearest (1992). Ontiveros also had a notable cameo appearance in Blood In Blood Out (1993) as Carmen, a

drug dealer who Paco (Benjamin Bratt) busts in a sting operation as an undercover cop pretending to be a drug dealer.

Ontiveros worked with Nava in subsequent films, including My Family/Mi Familia (1995) and Selena (1997). In the latter film, she portrayed Yolanda Saldívar, the murderer of Tejano superstar Selena. Long after the film was released, Ontiveros would still reportedly be "hissed" at by Selena fans while in public.{{cite news|last=Navarro|first=Mireya|title=Lupe Ontiveros, Who Portrayed Maids and Moms, Dies at 69|work=The New York Times |date=July 28, 2012 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/28/arts/television/lupe-ontiveros-69-desperate-housewives-actress-dies.html|quote=In "Selena," released in 1997, Ms. Ontiveros was so credible as the killer of the popular Tejano music star Selena Quintanilla, played by Jennifer Lopez, that for years the singer's fans would hiss at her when she walked into a public place.}} Ontiveros also appeared in the Academy Award-winning film As Good as It Gets.[https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1151781 Interview on NPR's "Fresh Air,"] October 17, 2002

In 2000, Ontiveros was featured in the film Chuck & Buck, in which she played Beverly, a tough theater director who puts on a play written by one of the film's main characters. Ontiveros said in multiple interviews that she accepted the role even before seeing the script, solely on the basis of being asked to play a character who was not defined by Hispanic ethnicity. For that role, Ontiveros was nominated for Best Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture at the 2000 Independent Spirit Awards.

During her acting career, Ontiveros participated in the web series Los Americans (2011), which is characterized by having a multigenerational focus, a middle-class family living in Los Angeles. During the series, she participated with Esai Morales, Tony Plana, Yvonne DeLaRosa, JC Gonzalez, Raymond Cruz and Ana Villafañe.

Ontiveros co-starred with America Ferrera in the 2002 film Real Women Have Curves, as the overbearing mother of Ferrera's character. Her performance received excellent reviews and earned Ontiveros and her co-star a Special Jury Prize at the prestigious Sundance Film Festival. Ontiveros and Ferrera appeared together again in the family comedy Our Family Wedding. Ontiveros continued to work in the studio and independent films, such as This Christmas in 2007 and My Uncle Rafael in 2012.

Ontiveros had a recurring role in the 2004–05 season of American prime time soap opera series Desperate Housewives as Juanita Solis, Gabrielle's suspicious mother-in-law. She received an Emmy nomination as Best Guest Actress in a Comedy Series for this role. In 2004, Ontiveros also began a role as Abuela Elena, the grandmother of the title characters in the animated PBS children's series Maya & Miguel. The multicultural and bilingual series later introduced a deaf character, Marco, after a sign language-themed episode was suggested by the actress, who had two deaf adult sons.[https://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/25/arts/television/25sign.html?ex=1160452800&en=0dab4c24b9e41f60&ei=5070 Spreading the Word: A Deaf Boy Joins the Gang], The New York Times, September 25, 2006

Ontiveros was a star of the short-lived the WB's Greetings from Tucson, playing the grandmother in an upwardly mobile family of mixed Irish and Mexican heritage. She also had recurring guest roles in the series Veronica's Closet, for which Ontiveros won an ALMA Award in 1998, and in the short-lived soap opera Pasadena. She was a guest star in Hill Street Blues, Red Shoe Diaries, Resurrection Blvd., Cory in the House and King of the Hill, among many other series.

After deciding she wanted an acting career, Ontiveros began in earnest, following up full-day sessions at her first career with evening work at Nosotros, a community theater in Los Angeles.[http://www.segundajuventud.org/english/entertainment/2005-FM/05FM_Lupe.html Lupe Ontiveros: Sitting Pretty] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061009113009/http://www.segundajuventud.org/english/entertainment/2005-FM/05FM_Lupe.html |date=October 9, 2006 }}, AARP Segunda Juventud magazine, February/March 2005 In 1978, Ontiveros was cast as Dolores in Luis Valdez's historic play Zoot Suit in her first major theatrical role. Ontiveros went on to reprise the role on Broadway—it was the first Mexican American theatrical production ever to play there—and in the 1982 film version. Ontiveros was also a founding member of the Latino Theater Company.[https://web.archive.org/web/20060512094528/http://entertainment.lycos.com/movies/celeb_bio.php?id=16898 Lupe Ontiveros profile on Lycos]{{cite news|last=Ng|first=David|title=Latino Theater Company remembers Lupe Ontiveros|newspaper=Los Angeles Times|date=July 27, 2012|url=https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/la-xpm-2012-jul-27-la-et-cm-lupe-ontiveros-latino-the20120727-story.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200624175717/https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/la-xpm-2012-jul-27-la-et-cm-lupe-ontiveros-latino-the20120727-story.html|archive-date=June 24, 2020|access-date=September 1, 2020}}

Ontiveros and her husband, Elías, had three sons: Alejandro, Elias, and Nicholas. They resided in Pico Rivera, California.

Ontiveros died on July 26, 2012, at Presbyterian Hospital in Whittier, California at the age of 69 after a battle with liver cancer.{{cite news |date=July 27, 2012 |title='Selena' co-star Lupe Ontiveros dies at 69 |url=http://marquee.blogs.cnn.com/2012/07/27/selena-co-star-lupe-ontiveros-dies-at-69 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120728031942/http://marquee.blogs.cnn.com/2012/07/27/selena-co-star-lupe-ontiveros-dies-at-69/ |archive-date=July 28, 2012 |access-date=July 28, 2012 |publisher=CNN}}

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Category:1942 births

Category:2012 deaths

Category:American actresses of Mexican descent

Category:American film actresses

Category:American stage actresses

Category:American television actresses

Category:American voice actresses

Category:American social workers

Category:Actresses from El Paso, Texas

Category:Sundance Film Festival award winners

Category:Texas Woman's University alumni

Category:Deaths from liver cancer in California

Category:20th-century American actresses

Category:21st-century American actresses

Category:Burials at Rose Hills Memorial Park

Category:American Roman Catholics