María Conchita Alonso

María Conchita Alonso
Alonso (right) at LA Pride 2011
Born	María Concepción Alonso Bustillo (1955-06-29) June 29, 1955 (age 69) Cienfuegos, Cuba
Citizenship	Cuba Venezuela United States
Occupation(s)	Singer, actress
Relatives	Antonella Alonso (niece)[1][2]
Beauty pageant titleholder
Title	Miss World Venezuela 1975
Years active	1971–present
Major competition(s)	Miss World Venezuela 1975 (Winner) Miss World 1975 (Top 7)
Musical career
Genres	Latin pop adult contemporary dance-pop pop rock
Musical artist

María Concepción Alonso Bustillo (born June 29, 1955^[3]), better known as María Conchita Alonso, is a Cuban-American actress, singer, and beauty pageant titleholder who represented Venezuela at Miss World 1975 and placed in the top seven. She is most known to international audiences for playing Amber Mendez in the 1987 action thriller The Running Man.

She has participated in film and television productions, and was nominated for the Independent Spirit Award as Best Leading Actress in 1996 for her role in Caught. As a singer, she has received several gold and platinum records, and has been nominated for three Grammy Awards.

Alonso was the first Latin American actress not born in the United States to star in a musical on Broadway, with Kiss of the Spider Woman at the Broadhurst Theatre (1995).

María Conchita Alonso was born in Cienfuegos, Cuba, on June 29, 1955, to Ricardo Alonso and Conchita Bustillo. Her family moved to Venezuela when she was five years old in 1962 after the Cuban Revolution. She was crowned Miss Teenager World in 1971. She was runner up for Miss Venezuela in 1975, and became a top seven runner-up in the Miss World pageant later that year,^[4] which was won by Puerto Rico's Wilnelia Merced.^[5]

Alonso's first gold album and number one song on the charts was Love Maniac, released in 1979 under the name Ámbar. After that followed her second number-one "The Witch" and soon after "Dangerous Rhythm". For what is considered her best known song, she was asked by Giorgio Moroder to write the lyrics in Spanish and sing "Vamos a Bailar" which he had written for the soundtrack of the film Scarface. The song instantly became a classic among Spanish speakers, despite failing to garner major attention outside of Cuba where it was recorded. Her two albums with Ámbar and her solo debut were recorded in English. Her second album, María Conchita, in 1984, made her an international singing star in the Spanish-speaking market, and garnered her first of three Grammy Award nominations (1985, 1988, 1994).^[6]

Alonso sang the United States national anthem at the FIFA UNICEF charity match on July 27, 1986, at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California, in front of a crowd of 57,539. The game was between the “Rest of the World” and “The Americas” which featured Diego Maradona only one month after his successful 1986 World Cup win.^[7][8]

Alonso made her Hollywood film debut in Moscow on the Hudson (1984) with Robin Williams, and also starred in Touch and Go (1986), Extreme Prejudice (1987), The Running Man (1987), Colors (1988), Vampire's Kiss (1989), Predator 2 (1990) and The House of the Spirits (1993).

In 1995, she became the first Latin-born actresses to star in a Broadway show, playing Aurora in Kiss of the Spider Woman.^{[citation needed]} She later acted in the romantic comedies Chasing Papi (2003) and The Last Guy on Earth (2006).

Alonso was cast to play Lucía, the mother of Gabrielle Solis, on the ABC series Desperate Housewives. The episode aired on February 19, 2006. She was in the Latin version, Amas de Casa Desesperadas, for Univision Network. She was a guest star in the live-action film of the comic book El Muerto and appeared in the film Material Girls (2006).

Alonso hosted VH1's ¡Viva Hollywood! on April 13, 2008, with Carlos Ponce. She portrayed Sam in the werewolf horror film Wolf Moon, directed by Dana Mennie.^[9]

Alonso appeared in Rob Zombie's The Lords of Salem, released in 2013. Her latest film, a fantasy short titled The Secret of Joy, features her alongside fellow Venezuelan actor Carlos Antonio León, Spanish actress Laura Bayonas, and Brazilian actress Ana Carolina Da Fonseca in a story that aims to bring awareness about pediatric cancer.^{[citation needed]}

Alonso has often spoken in support of LGBT rights and in appreciation of her LGBT fans, stating, "I was very much supported by the community when I first came out with my music". In a 2004 article, she compared herself to Cher in terms of her connection to LGBT culture.^[10]

Alonso was an outspoken critic of Cuba's Fidel Castro and Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, whom she described as a "dictator"-like "Hitler"^[11] and whose voters and supporters she described as "terrorists."^[12] She appeared on Sean Hannity's Hannity's America on May 6, 2007, Hannity & Colmes on June 1, 2007^[11] and Bill O'Reilly's The O'Reilly Factor on August 13, 2007, and March 11, 2009.

Alonso issued an "Open Letter to Sean Penn" (the two had played lovers in the 1988 movie Colors) online on March 29, 2010, regarding his support of Hugo Chávez. She used a point-by-point refrain of "WHY" in her letter questioning various issues occurring in Venezuela.^[13] In December 2011, she got into a heated exchange with Penn at a Los Angeles airport during which Penn called her a pig and she responded by calling Penn a communist.^[14]

In 2008, Alonso endorsed the US presidential campaign of Republican nominee John McCain, writing:^[15]

As a Latina and a new American citizen, I believe in this country and its people, and I believe that we need more than just "change." We need a leader who can bring about the right kind of change, and John McCain has the experience and judgment necessary to lead us in these uncertain times. I grew up in Cuba and Venezuela, and I am appalled that Barack Obama apparently wants to emulate the "spread the wealth" economic policies of those countries and negotiate with their leaders.

In an August 2012 Spreecast interview, Alonso stated her opposition to Obama's re-election, saying that if reelected, he would take steps to make the United States become more like Venezuela under the Chávez government.^[16]

In January 2014, Alonso resigned from a San Francisco production of The Vagina Monologues after appearing in an advertisement for Republican candidate for Governor Tim Donnelly.^[17]

In mid-2016, Alonso stated that she supported neither Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump nor Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton in the U.S. election.^[18][19] Despite this, however, she would go on to support Trump and then endorse him in the 2020 presidential election.^[20]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to María Conchita Alonso.

• María Conchita Alonso at IMDb
• María Conchita Alonso at the TCM Movie Database
• María Conchita Alonso at Discogs