Ofelia D'Acosta née Martinez (9 February 1922 in Havana, Cuba – 1 October 2011 in Guaynabo, Puerto Rico) was a Cuban–Puerto Rican actress.
[1] She was known in Puerto Rico for her participation in theater, film and telenovelas (a type of soap opera popular on Latin American television markets).
[2] Her first major break came as a leading actress in a radionovela named "Cuando La Hija es Una Rival" ("When Your Daughter is Your Enemy"), which was played on the "Radio Progreso" station in Cuba.
As a consequence of the late 1950s Cuban Revolution by Fidel Castro, Ernesto Guevara and others, D'Acosta and her husband Tino decided to move to Puerto Rico, where at first things were hard for the couple; D'Acosta had to become a saleswoman to make ends meet, walking around neighborhoods, selling Romper Room toys from house to house to make ends meet.
[2] Due in part to the fact that her husband Tino initially found success as an actor in Puerto Rico[3] during the mid-1960s, D'Acosta finally began acting in their new country.
One of the first telenovelas where she acted at in Puerto Rico was Telemundo Canal 2's "Esclavos del Rencor" ("Slaves of Resentment") in which she was the leading actress.
[2] Later on, D'Acosta participated in a Puerto Rican telenovela version of "Cuando La Hija es Una Rival", which this time was led by the German-Puerto Rican actor Axel Anderson and by Puerto Rican actress Camille Carrion;[2] through the late 1970s and the 1980s, she became a prolific television actress in Puerto Rico, also being cast for roles in, among others, "La Sombra de Belinda" ("Belinda's Shadow"), the classic "Coralito" alongside Salvador Pineda and Sully Diaz (as "Ceferina") "Preciosa" (as "Flor"), "Milly" (in which she played a nun, "Sor Teresa"), the classic "Tanairi", where she acted as villain "Emperatriz" oppose Juan Ferrara and Von Marie Mendez, and "Escandalo" ("Scandal", alongside Andres Garcia, Charityn and Iris Chacon).
[7] In spite of her views about governor Fortuno, he ordered Puerto Rican flags to be flown at half mast on the day she died.