Lupe Ontiveros Net Worth

Lupe Ontiveros's Quotes

• [on the Hispanic population in this country] They don't know we're very much a part of this country and that we make up every part of this country. When I go in there and speak perfect English, I don't get the part.
• I've made chicken salad out of chicken manure. I'm proud to represent those hands that labor in this country, I've given every maid I've portrayed soul and heart.

Interesting Facts about Lupe Ontiveros

1. Has worked part-time as a social worker.
2. Graduate of Texas Women's University, with majors in psychology and social work.
3. Mother, with Elias P. Ontiveros, of three sons.
4. She estimates she has played a maid in at least 150 films or plays. She narrated a documentary, Maid in America (2005).
5. She is best-known in the Latino community for her portrayal of Yolanda Saldivar in the movie, Selena (1997), and to Anglo audiences as the housekeeper on The Goonies (1985).
6. Two of Lupe's three sons are hearing-impaired. Lupe, as a young woman, worked in her own mother's small factory for a few months, with women not unlike those working in the sweatshop in Real Women Have Curves (2002).
7. Received a Lifetime Achievement Impact Award in 2002 from the National Hispanic Media Coalition (NHMC). The NHMC Impact Awards recognize outstanding contributions to the positive portrayal of Latinos in media.
8. Her parents owned a tortilla factory and two restaurants.
9. In 2005, Ontiveros was nominated for an Emmy Award for her guest star role as Juanita "Mama" Solis, the nosy mother-in-law of Eva Longoria's character on "Desperate Housewives.".
10. Ontiveros was a founding board member of the Latino Theater Company in downtown Los Angeles.
11. She was an advocate for the hearing impaired. She founded the Latino Theater Company in Los Angeles, California in 1985.
12. She studied psychology and social work at Texas Women's University in Texas. She was social worker until she started acting in the 1970s.
13. She is survived by her husband, Elias Ontiveros of Pico Rivera, California; her sons, Nicholas Ontiveros, Alejandro Ontiveros, and Elias Ontiveros; and two granddaughters.
14. She has appeared in four films that have been selected for the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically or aesthetically" significant: Zoot Suit (1981), El Norte (1983), The Goonies (1985) and Real Women Have Curves (2002).
15. She was a lifelong Democrat.