17 Facts About Lupe Ontiveros

Guadalupe Ontiveros was an American actress best known for portraying Rosalita in The Goonies, and Yolanda Saldivar in the film Selena.

Lupe Ontiveros was raised Roman Catholic 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.

One of her most prominent early film roles was in the 1983 Gregory Nava film El Norte, in which Lupe Ontiveros played a seamstress and maid who acts as mentor to a newly arrived immigrant girl from Guatemala.

Lupe 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 and a housekeeper in Dolly Dearest.

Lupe Ontiveros had a notable cameo appearance in Blood In Blood Out as Carmen, a drug dealer who Paco busts in a sting operation as an undercover cop pretending to be a drug dealer.

Lupe Ontiveros appeared in the Academy Award-winning film As Good as It Gets.

Lupe 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.

Lupe Ontiveros co-starred with America Ferrera in the 2002 film Real Women Have Curves, as the overbearing mother of Ferrera's character.

Lupe Ontiveros's performance received excellent reviews and earned Ontiveros and her co-star a Special Jury Prize at the prestigious Sundance Film Festival.

Lupe Ontiveros continued to work in the studio and independent films, such as This Christmas in 2007 and My Uncle Rafael in 2012.

Lupe Ontiveros received an Emmy nomination as Best Guest Actress in a Comedy Series for this role.

Lupe 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.

Lupe Ontiveros 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.

Lupe Ontiveros was a guest star in Hill Street Blues, Red Shoe Diaries, Resurrection Blvd.

In 1978, Lupe Ontiveros was cast as Dolores in Luis Valdez's historic play Zoot Suit in her first major theatrical role.

Lupe Ontiveros was a founding member of the Latino Theater Company.

Lupe Ontiveros died on July 26,2012, at Presbyterian Hospital in Whittier, California at the age of 69 after a battle with liver cancer.