Itatí Guadalupe Cantoral Zucchi (born May 13, 1975) is a Mexican actress, singer, dancer, and producer. She is best known for her roles as Soraya Montenegro in ''

María la del Barrio ''María la del Barrio'' (Literal translation, Lit: ''Maria From the Hood''/English title: ''Humble Maria'') is a Mexican telenovela produced by Angelli Nesma Medina for Televisa in 1995. The series is a remake of ''Los ricos también lloran'' ...

'' (1995) and Alejandra Álvarez del Castillo Fernández "La Licenciada" in '' Hasta que el dinero nos separe'' (2009), both telenovelas produced by

Televisa Grupo Televisa, S.A.B., simply known as Televisa, is a Mexican telecommunications and broadcasting company. A major Latin American mass media corporation, it often presents itself as the largest producer of Spanish-language content. In April ...

Early life and education

Cantoral was born in

Mexico City Mexico City is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Mexico, largest city of Mexico, as well as the List of North American cities by population, most populous city in North America. It is one of the most important cultural and finan ...

, Mexico. She is the daughter of Mexican

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and def ...

and

songwriter A songwriter is a person who creates musical compositions or writes lyrics for songs, or both. The writer of the music for a song can be called a composer, although this term tends to be used mainly in the classical music genre and film scoring. ...

, Roberto Cantoral, and

Argentine Argentines, Argentinians or Argentineans are people from Argentina. This connection may be residential, legal, historical, or cultural. For most Argentines, several (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their ...

actress of Italian descent, Itatí Zucchi. Cantoral has three brothers Carlos, Roberto & also actor and singer José Cantoral. A child actress, at 13, Cantoral was accepted into the

actors' academy,

Centro de Educación Artística The Centro de Educación Artística (CEA) is an Drama school, entertainment educational institution in Mexico run by that country's major media conglomerate, Televisa. Located at Televisa San Ángel, the company's facilities in the San Ángel nei ...

, and made her television debut in the series ''La telaraña'' in 1986. She later acted in the

telenovela A telenovela is a type of a television serial drama or soap opera produced primarily in Latin America. The word combines ''tele'' (for "television") and ''novela'' (meaning "novel"). Similar Drama (film and television), drama genres around the w ...

Muchachitas ''Muchachitas'' (English title: ''Girls'') is a Mexican telenovela produced by Emilio Larrosa for Televisa in 1991. The telenovela was also shown on Univisión in the early 1990s. It stars Alejandro Camacho, Cecilia Tijerina, Tiaré Scanda, ...

'' in 1991.

Career

In 1993, Cantoral appeared in '' Dos mujeres, un camino'' with Erik Estrada, Laura León, Bibi Gaytán, Lorena Herrera, Selena Quintanilla,

Jorge Salinas Jorge Salinas Pérez (born July 27, 1968) is a Mexican television and film actor, best known for his leading roles in telenovelas. Career Salinas then enrolled at Centro de Educación Artística (CEA) in 1990 and after finishing his studies, he ...

, and members of Grupo Bronco. This production exposed her to wider audiences in Mexico and Latin America. She took the role of the villain Soraya Montenegro in ''

'' from 1995 to 1996, alongside

Thalía Ariadna Thalía Sodi Miranda (; born 26 August 1971), known mononymously as Thalía, is a Mexican singer, songwriter and actress. Referred to as the "Honorific nicknames in popular music, Queen of Latin Pop", she is considered one of the most ...

and

Fernando Colunga Fernando Colunga Olivares (; born 3 March 1966) is a Mexican actor known for his work in Mexican telenovelas. Colunga gained international fame for playing Luis Fernando de la Vega in the Mexican soap opera '' Maria la del Barrio''. He is also ...

. In 1996 and 1997 she appeared in ''Tú y yo'', with Maribel Guardia and

Joan Sebastian José Manuel Figueroa Sr. (April 8, 1951 – July 13, 2015), known professionally as Joan Sebastian (), was a Mexican singer and songwriter. Born in Juliantla, Guerrero, he composed more than 1,000 songs, including compositions for artists such ...

; and in ''

Salud, dinero y amor ''Salud, dinero y amor'' (English title: ''Health, money and love'') is a Mexican telenovela produced by Emilio Larrosa for Televisa in 1997–98. Is a sequel of 1995 Mexican telenovela '' El premio mayor''. On August 4, 1997, Canal de las Estr ...

'', the sequel to Mexican telenovela ''

El premio mayor ''El premio mayor'', is a Mexican telenovela produced by Emilio Larrosa and written by Verónica Suárez and Alejandro Pohlenz. Carlos Bonavides, Laura León, Sasha Sokol and Sergio Goyri star as the main protagonists, while Claudio Báez, L ...

''. In 2001, Cantoral played the antagonic role of Raquel Villavicencio in ''Sin Pecado Concebido'', another Televisa production starring Angelica Rivera and Carlos Ponce. She starred in the Brazilian-American co-production '' Vale todo'' in 2002; and in 2003,

Telemundo Telemundo (; formerly NetSpan) is an American Spanish-language terrestrial television network owned by NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises, a division of NBCUniversal, which in turn is a wholly owned subsidiary of Comcast. It provides content ...

's '' El alma herida'', as a teenage girl who crosses the Mexican–American border to find her long-lost mother. In 2004, she was

Sally Bowles Sally Bowles () is a fictional character created by English-American novelist Christopher Isherwood and based upon 19-year-old cabaret singer Jean Ross. The character debuted in Isherwood's 1937 novella ''Sally Bowles'' published by Hogarth Pre ...

in Mexico City's Teatro Insurgentes production of ''

Cabaret Cabaret is a form of theatrical entertainment featuring music song, dance, recitation, or drama. The performance venue might be a pub, casino, hotel, restaurant, or nightclub with a stage for performances. The audience, often dining or drinking, ...

'', and in 2006, she starred with

Francisco Gattorno Francisco Alejandro Gattorno Sánchez (; born October 12, 1964), better known in the show business world plainly as Francisco Gattorno, is a Cuban actor. Biography Francisco grew up in Santa Clara. He is a son of a Canarian father, and mother ...

in the Telemundo production of Julio Jimenez's '' La Viuda de Blanco''. In 2009–2010, she played the character Alejandra Alvarez Del Castilo in Televisa's hit telenovela '' Hasta que el dinero nos separe'' with actor and singer Pedro Fernández, for which she won Best Actress at the

Premios TVyNovelas The Premios TVyNovelas are presented annually by Televisa and the magazine TVyNovelas to honor the best Mexican television productions, including telenovelas. Instituted in 1983, the award ceremony rotates between Mexico City and Acapulco. The c ...

, where the telenovela also won the main category; while the actors won Best Couple of the Year at the show. Cantoral protagonized many famous plays in Mexican theatre, such as ''Aventurera'', ''Sweet Charity'', ''Mame the Musical'' and many more. In 2018, she starred as Mexican actress

Silvia Pinal Silvia Pinal Hidalgo (12September 193128November 2024) was a Mexican actress. She began her career in theatre before venturing into cinema in 1949. She became one of the greatest female stars of the Golden Age of Mexican cinema and, with her p ...

in the biographical television series '' Silvia Pinal, Frente a Ti'', for which she was nominated as Best Actress in a TV series for the Premios TVyNovelas. On November 18, 2015, Cantoral was named Mr. Amigo, which is an association in

Brownsville, Texas Brownsville ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Texas and the county seat of Cameron County, Texas, Cameron County, located on the western Gulf Coast in South Texas, adjacent to the Mexico–United States border, border with Matamoros, Tamaulipas ...

that honors a Mexican citizen each year to promote international friendship and good will between the U.S. and Mexico. Itatí is the second member of the Cantoral family to be awarded Mr. Amigo after her father, Roberto Cantoral, was awarded in 1981. As a singer, Cantoral has released two albums, one of them being ''Itatí Canta a Roberto Cantoral'', which was produced by her late father Roberto Cantoral. In 2018, she was part of the tribute album to her father "Roberto Cantoral: Siempre Vivo" with the song "Me Esta Gustando".

Filmography

Film

Television

Awards and nominations

TVyNovelas Awards ''TVyNovelas'' is a Mexican magazine published by Editorial Televisa on a monthly basis. Like soap opera publications in the United States such as ''Soap Opera Digest'' and ''Soaps In Depth'', it mainly carries coverage of Mexican and internati ...

Premios People en Español

Festival Mercado TV-Fiction International Awards

Association of Theatre Journalists Awards

Other awards

* Medal Omecihuatl 2011 Awarded by Inmujeres DF * Part of "Los 50 más bellos" by magazine ''People en Español'' (2011, 2015)People en español "Itatí Cantoral una de los 50 más bellos"
- actualizado abril de 2011 * Queen of Voceadores (2010) * Queen of Veracruz television * Premio Palmas de oro (Best Villain) * Jealous of the popularity * Premio Bravo * Premio ACE of New York * El Sol de oro * Premio Fama New York (2002) *Queen of Mariachi (2015) *Mr. Amigo (Nov. 18, 2015)

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Cantoral, Itati 1975 births Living people Mexican telenovela actresses Mexican television actresses Mexican film actresses Mexican stage actresses 20th-century Mexican actresses 21st-century Mexican actresses Actresses from Mexico City Singers from Mexico City Mexican people of Argentine descent Mexican people of Italian descent 21st-century Mexican singers 21st-century Mexican women singers Mexican people of Spanish descent Mexican people of French descent