Rosie Perez

She married filmmaker, Seth Zyi Rosenfeld in 1991. After a decade of their marriage the couple divorced in 2001.

In 2009, she injured her neck while filming for ‘Law & order: SVU’. Two years later, she filed a lawsuit against the show with accusations of “manhandling” on the set.

In 2010, she was appointed by President Obama to ‘The Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS’ and serves as a chairperson for ‘Urban Arts Partnership’ at New York City.

She was born Rosa Maria Perez on 6th September, 1964 at Brooklyn in New York. Her parents were Puerto Rican; her father was a merchant marine named Ismael Serrano and her mother, Lydia was a singer.

Her parents weren’t married and she was conceived from an extra-marital affair. Her mother gave birth to her at the ‘Greenpoint Hospital’, Brooklyn. She was taken care of by a maternal aunt until her mother put her under foster care at the age of three.

Her mother suffered from schizophrenia and though she visited Perez often, she couldn’t fill the void in her life. Perez has 10 half siblings from her mother. Her mother died years later owing to complications from AIDS.

After foster parents, she was placed under the care of nuns where she was reared with strict Catholic upbringing, but suffered at the hands of a few cruel nuns.

Owing to the early traumatic experiences of her childhood which included abuse and abandonment she acquired a speech impairment that added to her already existing ordeals.

In 1989, the world saw the talented Perez in the film ‘Do the Right Thing’. Her breakthrough got her several roles the following year including the TV movie ‘Criminal Justice’ and television shows ’21 Jump Street’ and ‘In Living Color’.

In 1992, she starred in the movie ‘White Men Can’t Jump’ as Gloria Clemente and as Cyndi in ‘Untamed Heart’. The following year, she was cast in one of her most outstanding performances in the movie ‘Fearless’.

She appeared as Muriel Lang in the Hollywood film ‘It Could happen to You’ and also played Mercedes in ‘Somebody to Love’. She also became a voice actor with her role as Thumbelina in ‘Happily Ever After: Fairy Tales for Every Child’.

1997 was an eventful year for her; she starred in the movie ‘A Brother’s Kiss’ as Debbie, and as the title character in the movie ‘Perdite Durango’.

She played Grace Santos in the movie ‘The 24 Hour Woman’ and was the voice of Chel in ‘The Road to El Dorado’. In 2003, she narrated the sequences in the movie ‘From the 10th Floor’.

Her performance in the movie ‘Fearless’ was critically acclaimed. The movie received 86% evaluation on ‘Rotten Tomatoes’ and was mentioned as an “underrated gem”. The movie earned seven million at the box office.

The 2008 comedy ‘Pineapple Express’ received good reviews with a score of 6.3 out of 10 on ‘Rotten Tomatoes’, in which Perez played the leading lady.