María Conchita is a Cuban-born Venezuelan-American actress and singer whose career spans film, TV, music, and theater. She has received several gold and platinum albums and three Grammy Award nominations. Alonso was one of the first Latin American entertainers to achieve mainstream success in both Spanish- and English-language media. In 1995, she became the first Latin American actress not born in the U.S. to star in a Broadway in Kiss of the Spider Woman. She was Miss Venezuela in the Miss World pageant in 1975.
Alonso made her Hollywood film debut in Moscow on the Hudson (1984) with Robin Williams. She has been an activist in the struggle against the communist regimes of Cuba and Venezuela.