Lupe Ontiveros
Ontiveros in 2008
Born	Guadalupe Moreno (1942-09-17)September 17, 1942[1] El Paso, Texas, U.S.
Died	July 26, 2012(2012-07-26) (aged 69) Whittier, California, U.S.
Resting place	Rose Hills Memorial Park
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1968–2012
Spouse	Elías Ontiveros ​ (m. 1966)​
Children	3

Guadalupe Ontiveros (née Moreno; September 17, 1942 – July 26, 2012) was an American actress best known for portraying Rosalita inThe Goonies, andYolanda Saldívar in the filmSelena. She acted in numerous films and television shows. Ontiveros was nominated for anEmmy Award for her work onDesperate Housewives and received critical acclaim for her role inChuck & Buck, for which Ontiveros won theNational Board of Review award for Best Supporting Actress, and was also nominated for anIndependent Spirit Award.^[2]

Guadalupe Moreno was born on September 17, 1942, inEl Paso, Texas, the daughter of Luz "Lucita" Castañón and Juan Moreno, middle-classMexican immigrants who overcame a lack of formal education to become owners of a tortilla factory and two restaurants in El Paso.^[1][3] Lupe was raisedRoman Catholic^[4] and graduated fromEl Paso High School and went on to study atTexas Woman's University inDenton, Texas, where she received a bachelor's degree insocial work in 1964.^[1]

After marrying Elías Ontiveros in 1966, the couple moved toCalifornia to realize his dream of starting an automotive business. During a period of dissatisfaction with her career as asocial 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 localfilm 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 asdomestic violence prevention andAIDS awareness and prevention.^[5]

Ontiveros once estimated that she had played a maid at least 150 times on stage and screen;^[3] Ontiveros wanted to see more diverse roles available toLatina 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."^[6] In part because of her history in this role, Ontiveros was chosen as the narrator for the documentaryMaid in America.^[7]

One of her most prominent early film roles was in the 1983Gregory Nava filmEl Norte, in which Ontiveros played a seamstress and maid who acts as mentor to a newly arrived immigrant girl fromGuatemala. In a 2004 interview with theDominican newspaperListin Diario, Ontiveros calledEl 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.^[8] Ontiveros played the housekeeper, Rosalita, a Spanish-speaking maid hired to assist in the packing and moving of the Walsh family in the hitadventure filmThe Goonies (1985) and a housekeeper inDolly Dearest (1992). Ontiveros also had a notable cameo appearance inBlood In Blood Out (1993) as Carmen, adrug 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, includingMy Family/Mi Familia (1995) andSelena (1997). In the latter film, she portrayedYolanda Saldívar, the murderer ofTejano superstarSelena. Long after the film was released, Ontiveros would still reportedly be "hissed" at by Selena fans while in public.^[9] Ontiveros also appeared in theAcademy Award-winning filmAs Good as It Gets.^[10]

In 2000, Ontiveros was featured in the filmChuck & 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 2000Independent Spirit Awards.

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

Ontiveros co-starred withAmerica Ferrera in the 2002 filmReal 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 prestigiousSundance Film Festival. Ontiveros and Ferrera appeared together again in the family comedyOur Family Wedding. Ontiveros continued to work in the studio and independent films, such asThis Christmas in 2007 andMy Uncle Rafael in 2012.

Ontiveros had a recurring role in the 2004–05 season of Americanprime timesoap opera seriesDesperate Housewives asJuanita Solis, Gabrielle's suspicious mother-in-law. She received anEmmy nomination asBest 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 animatedPBS children's seriesMaya & Miguel. The multicultural and bilingual series later introduced adeaf character, Marco, after asign language-themed episode was suggested by the actress, who had two deaf adult sons.^[11]

Ontiveros was a star of the short-livedthe WB'sGreetings from Tucson, playing the grandmother in an upwardly mobile family of mixedIrish andMexican heritage. She also had recurring guest roles in the seriesVeronica's Closet, for which Ontiveros won anALMA Award in 1998, and in the short-lived soap operaPasadena. She was a guest star inHill Street Blues,Red Shoe Diaries,Resurrection Blvd.,Cory in the House andKing 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.^[12] In 1978, Ontiveros was cast as Dolores in Luis Valdez's historic playZoot Suit in her first major theatrical role. Ontiveros went on to reprise the role onBroadway—it was the first Mexican American theatrical production ever to play there—and in the 1982film version. Ontiveros was also a founding member of theLatino Theater Company.^[13][14]

Ontiveros and her husband, Elías, had three sons: Alejandro, Elias, and Nicholas. They resided inPico Rivera, California.^[1]

Ontiveros died on July 26, 2012, at Presbyterian Hospital inWhittier, California at the age of 69 after a battle withliver cancer.^[1][15]

Wikimedia Commons has media related toLupe Ontiveros.

Wikiquote has quotations related toLupe Ontiveros.

• Lupe Ontiveros atIMDb

• 1942 births
• 2012 deaths
• American actresses of Mexican descent
• American film actresses
• American stage actresses
• American television actresses
• American voice actresses
• American social workers
• Actresses from El Paso, Texas
• Sundance Film Festival award winners
• Texas Woman's University alumni
• Deaths from liver cancer in California
• 20th-century American actresses
• 21st-century American actresses
• Burials at Rose Hills Memorial Park
• American Roman Catholics

• Webarchive template wayback links
• CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown
• Use American English from November 2022
• All Wikipedia articles written in American English
• Use mdy dates from November 2022
• Articles with short description
• Short description matches Wikidata
• Articles with hCards
• Commons category link from Wikidata