MARIA LARIA on-line
A biography...
The first Hispanic woman to produce and star in her own television program.." "The pioneer of all Hispanic talk- shows.....an overwhelmingly popular television personality with over one hundred million viewers across the globe .. ; the only talk-show hostess who can claim having as guests presidents and homeless, artists and murderers, professionals and illiterates, saints and sinners, the best and the worst of the human experience... "

All of these phrases describe Maria Laria: executive producer, television hostess, journalist, concert pianist and beauty of outstanding fame and success. Bom in Havana, Cuba, Maria arrived into the United States with her family when she was barely five years old. After a short stay in Miami, the Larias lived in New Mexico until they finally settled in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

From an early age, Maria showed great interest in music, especially for the piano. While attending elementary school, she was accepted at the prestigious Conservatorio de Musica , founded in San Juan by the immortal cellist Pablo Casals. Maria's dedication, discipline and musical talent impressed her instructors as she was chosen to perform for Mr. Casals himself, receiving a diploma of honors and warm congratulations from "The Maestro".

Maria's scholastic excellence was also acknowledged during her high school years. She graduated from the San Jose Academy with first honors, and her name was featured in the book "Outstanding American High School Students". Her achievements in Puerto Rico made her an ideal candidate for the best learning institutions in the United States.

After being awarded a distinguished scholarship at the New England Conservatory of Music, Maria moved to Boston with her family to attend such prestigious institution. She successfully completed a Master's Degree - Magna Cum Laude - in Piano Performance, while simultaneously pursuing collateral studies in Mathematics at Harvard and M.I.T. during the summers.

Her virtuosity as a pianist brought her into her initial contacts with television. Maria had been invited to several programs where she was interviewed after performing the best of her classical repertoire. It was "love at first sight". and from that moment on, Maria knew that her place and passion was in front of the camera.

With the world of communications and television in mind, she proceeded with her education at U.C.L.A. studying journalism. In addition, she continued to expand her professional experience in the areas of acting and modeling. It wasn't long before she was combining her piano recitals with modeling assignments in New York while acting in local plays. At this time her fate had it written that she was to cross paths with Carlos Ceballos. Carlos, a bright and adventurous young man just returning after serving in the U.S. Army found in Maria a unique companion with whom to share a passion for music, the arts and entertainment. The couple fell in love and married in Boston. In 198 1, Maria and Carlos decided to "go west " to the center of the entertainment industry. After going through the usual auditions, interviews and disappointments, she is hired by Galavision, the first T.V. cable station in Spanish. She becomes the first Spanish cable television hostess with "El Mundo del Espectaculo ", a program reporting on the latest films, concerts and recordings as well as interviewing stars and celebrities.

She becomes an instant success with Hispanic audiences in the U.S. and Puerto Rico. Her show remains on the air for five solid years until she's lured away by the renowned KVEA-TV of Los Angeles, where she's given the opportunity to anchor two daily newscasts. Maria surprises everyone with her beauty, personality and what one critic described as: "..her ability to present news as if she was personally involved, but without losing her charming femininity, "

For the next four years, Maria continues informing and charming her viewers, not only with her unique style of delivering news, but also by producing special news reports covering topics such as: "Latino Women Behind Bars ", "Crossing the U. S. Border " (a live-remote of an illegal crossing at the San Diego / Tijuana border), "Drug Babies", "Slum Lords", and others, which gained her several journalistic awards as well as the respect of the Latino community.

Always restless and creative, Maria conceptualizes the idea to produce and host a talk-show in Spanish following the format of "Donahue", "Oprah ", and others. The idea did not receive the support of executives who argued that Hispanics would not accept, much less participate, in such a program. However, Maria, not easy to shy away from challenge, takes on the task; and on April 17, 1989 "Cara a Cara with Maria Laria " ("Face to Face with Maria Laria") aired in Los Angeles to the acclaim of both her audience and critics. By the end of the year, the show goes national on the Telemundo Network. With this program, Maria proved to broadcasters that Hispanics living in the U.S. wanted original programming produced in this country, reflecting and addressing the current issues that they face today. No longer did they need to rely on programming produced abroad, and this paved the way to new trends in Spanish-speaking television in this country.

Maria's success seems to lie in her incredible ability to present "taboo" subjects such as, "Frigidity and Orgasm " Bisexuality ", "Incest ", " Transvestism ". all of these presented with frankness and taste, sympathizing with her guests and charming them into revealing their darkest secrets. Maria believes that combining such high-rated topics with a variety of public-service issues has helped her popularity and credibility. Her show brings an innovative element of suspense surprising her viewers with daring topics, uncensored and bold opinions, as well as the uniqueness of her exotic guests. "Maria has interviewed almost everybody who is anybody, from PopeJohn Paul II to Jane Fonda to George Bush ". From its humble origins in Los Angeles, the show became an international success. In August 1992, "Cara a Cara con Maria Laria " moves to Miami into a larger state-of-the-art studio in order to accommodate the growing audience who wished to participate live with their favorite TV host - Maria Laria. Simultaneously, her immense popularity was officially being recognized when the name of her program became the "Maria Laria Show " The show began to explore new ventures using live broadcasts that expanded her audience from the studio to the live telephone "call-ins". The show also went "on the road" with live tapings on location attracting larger audiences, from Bayside in Miami to Universal Studios in Hollywood, and all the way accross the Atlantic including live specials from Paris and Rome.In 1988 In September 1994 Maria moved to Spain to embark in one of the most ambitious journeys of her career: the launch of the world's first international talk-show taped live at different locations throughout the globe. The show was aired simultaneously in four continents. It was the birth of "Sin Fronteras con Maria Laria " a co-production between Radio Television Espanola and the most successful international cable network for women - "GEMS Television" Maria immediately became a role model for the network's millions of viewers as host and executive producer of her own show. Her show naturally became the network's signature program dealing with international women's issues in the sophisticated, frank, warm and cultured way that has become Maria's talk-show trademark.

Over the years, Maria has received many prestigious awards for her work. The accolades come from the television industry, from government and community organizations and from the media in general; including four "Emmys", "Maria Laria Day" proclaimed by Los Angeles' Mayor Tom Bradley, diplomas from the U.S. Congress, U.S. Senate, and House of Representatives naming her Distinguished Citizen and several "ACE Awards "given by New York's Association of Critics. In addition, Maria was honored with the symbolic reception of "Keys" to the cities of Miami, Los Angeles, New York and many others. Other International recognitions include awards received in El Salvador, Mexico, Spain, Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic among others.

Maria devotes much of her free time to various charities and community organizations, such as U.D.L.A. (Union of Disabled Latin Americans), S.A.N. E., a program of the Sheriff Department in Los Angeles to prevent children from using drugs or joining gangs, A.H.O.R.A., which raises funds for AIDS research and provides help to persons with the HIV virus., Easter Seals, and many others. Recently, Maria taped a series of public-service announcements on AIDS with fellow talk-show hosts Jerry Springer, Montel Williams, Leeza Gibbons and Bertice Berry among others. As she puts it: "..this is the way to show my gratitude to the community that has embraced me.".


Maria has dedicated most of her time in the past year 1999-2000, to her most recent project: the release of her Classical CD titled Pianissimo: a live taping of one of her most recent performances as a concert pianist in prestigiuos Jordan Hall in Boston, Massachussetts. With Pianissimo, Maria returns to her roots as a concert pianist. Featuring beautiful and well-known solo piano selections from Bach, Chopin, Prokofieff and Liszt; it is the next best thing to being there live to witness this unique and acclaimed performance. To please her audience's requests, she included the extremely popular and technically demanding Black Keys and Revolutionary Etudes by Chopin; and passionately romantic Dream of Love (Liebestraum) by Franz Liszt. To enhance the live recital, she also included the well-known dreamy and meditative Chopin Mazurka in A minor, theme to the Ingmar Bergman Classic film, "Cries and Whispers". Maria is currently dedicating most of her time to the upcoming International release and worldwide promotional tour of her Pianissimo CD in the U.S., Latin America, Europe and Japan.

Maria sincerely believes that Classical Music and the Arts can be the necessary antidote to the present-time unfortunate violence in our schools. For this sole purpose, the filming of her innovative "Pianissimo" music video on 35mm, in exotic locations of Key West and the Spanish Monastery; has been dedicated to promote non-violence among all high-school students in the whole United States of America. Currently involved in various non-profit organizations and initiatives to promote art programs in our schools, she firmly believes classical music and the arts in general; can help our children be more culturally-oriented and better educated, being this an antidote to violence in schools and in our future society as a whole.

Maria has recently founded ML'2008 Enterprises, featuring her ML'2008 Swim and Sportswear Collection. Firmly believing in the future marriage of Television and the Internet, the World Wide Web, she reaches all her fans around the globe through her extremely popular International website "marialaria.com", with a weekly Internet column addressing current issues with International appeal, film reviews and nutrition advice. In 1999, Maria Laria accepted the Presidency of the Miami Hispanic Film Festival, commiting to promoting high-quality Hispanic films in the US , Spain and Latin America. Maria has also just finished production on 28 International Prime-Time TV Specials titled "Era De Cambios" con Maria Laria, or "Seasons of Change", co-produced by Rubicon Entertainment; covering all geographical and planetarium events ocurring that will change our planet forever as we enter this third Millennium. During the early months of the year 2000, Maria Laria finally accepted her first acting role as a female physician in the series "Young Chicago Doctors", which just recently wrapped production. In the summer of 2001, Maria also wraps her first lead role in a US-European film coproduction, portraying an animal-rights activist and environmentalist heroine. This same year, Maria Laria is invited as Special Guest as an American actress to the Cannes Film Festival held annually on the French Riviera. In 2002-3, Maria Laria portrays a compassionate head nurse in the NBC leading daytime drama "Days of Our Lives" in a guest recurring role for 6 episodes. At the present time, Maria Laria carefully studies various film offers from Hollywood studios, in preparation for once again a new turn in her already prolific and versatile career. In Feb. 2004, The All-New Maria Laria TV Show restarted production in Empire Studios in Los Angeles, California; this time the new innovative talk-show format was geared toward adolescent and young troubled Hispanic teen-agers. This time around, instead of dwelling in talk, Maria Laria urges panelists to act upon decisions in order to change their lives. The New MariaLaria Show currently airs in LA, Miami, Houston, Dallas, San Diego, Venezuela, Puerto Rico and various other national and International markets worldwide. In August 2004, Maria Laria took a break from TV in order to return to the big screen, this time portraying a psychiatrist in the Mexican film The Secret, co-starring renowned Mexican actress Sonia Infante.
The Secret premiered April 17th, 2005 at the Miami International Film Festival at Cocowalk, 3015 Grande Ave., Coconut Grove, Miami, Fla. After the film, Maria decided to please her loving TV fans, premiering a new, revolutionary, interactive, free-style TV format March 22, 2006!Practically anything can happen LIVE on "Arrebatados!" (Wild & Crazy!) everyday at 6 PM, on Ch. 41, AmericaTV...watch it, you'll be surprised by what could and will happen on Arrebatados!