Maria Conchita Alonso

Maria Conchita Alonso began her performing career after competing in and winning beauty-pageants (Miss Teenager of the World 1971, Miss Venezuela 1975). The Cuban-born, Venezuelan-raised dark-haired beauty subsequently became one of South America's best-selling recording artists before becoming established as one of Hollywood's leading Hispanic actresses with her role in "Moscow on the Hudson" (1984), opposite Robin Williams. For a time in the late 1980s, she was in demand and starred alongside many of the leading male actors of the day. Alonso was nicely teamed romantically with Michael Keaton in the genial comedy "Touch and Go" (1986) and proved an effective comic foil for Arnold Schwarzenegger in the futuristic "The Running Man" (1987) but was underused as Sean Penn's doomed lover in "Colors" (1988). The actress rounded out the decade with an ill-fated attempt at sitcom stardom in NBC's "One of the Boys" (1989).