| Trini Alvarado |
 |
| Born |
Trinidad Alvarado
January 10, 1967 (1967-01-10) (age 42)
New York City, New York,
United States |
| Occupation |
Film, television actress |
| Years active |
1977 — present |
Trinidad "Trini" Alvarado[1] (born January 10, 1967) is an American actress best known for her performances as Margaret "Meg" March in the 1994 film adaptation of Louisa May Alcott's novel Little Women and Lucy Lynskey in the comedy/horror film The Frighteners. She also has notable stage performances to her credit and considerable singing talent. Her latest appearance was on the Fox show Fringe.
Life
Alvarado was born in New York City, the daughter of Sylvia, a Puerto Rican flamenco dancer, and Domingo Alvarado, a Spanish-born flamenco singer.[1][2][3] She attended the Professional Children's School and also studied at Fordham University. Alvarado admitted in a People magazine interview for the movie Stella, "I lead kind of a quiet life. I just grew up that way." [4] Alvarado more or less stays out of the limelight and is a self-described homebody; she revealed during the promotion for The Frighteners, "It's just difficult to go away. I was very nervous about having to go to New Zealand for nearly seven months [to make "The Frighteners"]. I was very tragically saying goodbye to everybody." [5]
Presently residing in New York City, Alvarado is married to actor Robert McNeill.
Career
Her induction into show business came at the tender age of seven when she joined her family's dance troupe [6], and that led to roles on stage, including the role of Melinda in Elizabeth Swados' Broadway musical Runaways in 1978. Alvarado was featured on the song "Lullaby From Baby to Baby" along with Karen Evans, which Swados herself calls the "theme song" of the musical[7]. The next year, she starred in Rich Kids alongside John Lithgow and Jeremy Levy, and she lent her vocals to the ending song "Happy Ida and Broken-Hearted John" [8]. The same year, she appeared in the ABC Afterschool Special "A Movie Star's Daughter" as Dena McKain—her first of two appearances in the series. Her second would come with the 1981 special "Starstruck."
In 1980, Alvarado subsequently appeared in Times Square with Tim Curry and Robin Johnson as the sheltered Pamela "Pammy" Pearl, during which she and Johnson collaborate on the song "Your Daughter is One." Following her role as Pammy Pearl was her second appearance in an ABC Afterschool Special, this time in "Starstruck," which features Alvarado singing three songs penned by lyricist Lynn Ahrens. She had roles in a string of TV shows and movies before gracing the big screen again in Gillian Armstrong's 1984 drama Mrs. Soffel. In 1985, Alvarado took on the role of Anne Frank in the off-Broadway musical Yours, Anne, singing on many of the play's musical numbers. The next year, she starred as the title character in Maggie Magalita, another off-Broadway production.
Her next roles—the young Lisa Titus in the ill-fated 1987 film The Chair, the tough, smart-aleck May "Mooch" Stark in the frank, girl-dominant teen movie Satisfaction--led up to one of her most memorable film roles to date: playing the daughter of Stella Claire, portrayed by Bette Midler. Midler and Alvarado bonded on set and even performed an impromptu duet of the chorus of the Beatles' "If I Fell" during Alvarado's screen test, which led to Alvarado winning the role of Jenny Claire. [9] After Stella, Alvarado played the role of Elinor Hartley in American Friends, which Michael Palin both wrote and starred in. Alvarado later worked alongside John Goodman again on the 1992 biopic The Babe, playing the role of Helen Woodford Ruth.
Alvarado would get the chance to work with director Gillian Armstrong again on the 1994 film adaptation of Little Women. Alvarado noted about gaining the role, "I am Hispanic and Meg... is not a Hispanic, but even so they gave me the part. But I understand the situation. I understand it because sometimes I see a film about Hispanics, where none of actors is Hispanic, and I feel bad about that. I'd feel particularly bad if they hadn't allowed me to audition, when they said that they'd already seen all the Hispanics in Hollywood, which isn't true." [10] She and her cast mates endured lessons in Victorian life, including proper etiquette, and restricting dresses. About the women's limiting garb, Alvarado pointed out, "It's so obvious why women were thought of as the weaker sex. I don't know if it was a subconscious desire of designers to hold women back, but you can't even take a full breath [in these Victorian dresses]." [10] Generally well received by critics and audiences, Little Women showcased Alvarado in one of her most-known roles to date, along with Pamela Pearl from Times Square, for example.
1995's The Perez Family was Alvarado's next film, also starring Alfred Molina, with whom she also worked in American Friends, Anjelica Huston, and Marisa Tomei. The next year saw the release of The Frighteners, Peter Jackson's pre-Lord of the Rings horror/comedy film about a ghost-seeing con man, and The Christmas Tree, the directing debut of actress Sally Field. Alvarado is better known for the first, even though The Frighteners wasn't hugely popular during its initial release. The Frighteners seemed to become more popular in the wake of the release of more successful Peter Jackson films and the re-release of The Frighteners DVD. In the making-of documentary included with the revamped DVD, Alvarado admitted to enduring bruises because of the more active, violent scenes in the movie and to being "cursed"; an ice cream truck from a local New Zealand vendor would go by playing "Greensleeves" every time Jackson did a close-up on her and make her come out of character. [11]
After making an appearance in the last few minutes of Paulie as the grown-up Marie Altweather in 1998, Alvarado would not grace the big screen again until 2007, as a seemingly perfect housewife in the critically acclaimed film Little Children starring Kate Winslet and Patrick Wilson. She played roles on the small screen, acting alongside Eric Stoltz for the third time in 2000's The Last Dance amidst a string of TV guest appearances and movies. She recently played the role of Samantha Loeb in the Fox sci-fi drama Fringe, appearing in two episodes in 2008 and 2009. Alvarado has parts in the upcoming film All Good Things, which also stars former co-star Kirsten Dunst, and The Good Guy, which had been screened at the Tribeca Film Festival on April 26, 2009. No word yet on the big-screen release date of The Good Guy.
References
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