Angélica María

Angélica María (born María de los Ángeles Hartman Ortíz September 27, 1944 in New Orleans, Louisiana is an American-born Mexican actress, singer and songwriter.

After a few musicals Angélica María asked for the assistance of her mother (who was also her manager) and with Armando Manzanero, then a new songwriter, they both performed the song Eddie Eddie which would eventually become her greatest musical success. Manzanero took Angélica to see a producer and the same year she released her first album in Musart record company. The album was a success and she began touring and making movies with teen idols such as César Costa and Venezuelan actor/singer Enrique Guzmán who she would date later.

In 1965, she filmed Fray Torero in Spain and came back to Mexico to appear in two movies and record her sixth album. She then acted in such successful films as 5 de chocolate y 1 de fresa ("Five of chocolate and one of strawberry" and obtained the star role in the 1968 film version of Corazón salvaje a movie that made her famous in places as far as China. Having move to RCA, in the next years she would become one of the biggest stars in Latin America. In 1971, she acted in Ernesto Alonso's telenovela Muchacha italiana viene a casarse ("Italian girl comes here to get married") which opened the Spanish market television in the United States and was a success in Central America and South America. In 1973 she met a second aspiring singer Juan Gabriel who would become one of the biggest selling artists in the world. Together they would record ballads performed by mariachi bands, thus creating the style "balada ranchera". The single Tú sigues siendo el mismo ("You are still the same") sold one million copies in the United States alone, and has since then been performed by dozens of other singers. She also filmed one of her biggest telenovelas Ana del aire ("Ana of the air") and recorded three more albums in 1974. In 1980 she recorded for the first time in a U. K. studio, making an album of ballads and a single with two pop songs in English, in order to search some kind of crossover. During these years, she signed with Marsal Productions, then Caytronics, then Melody, RCA (again) and finally CBS, being her last contract with a transnational record company. Since then, she settled her own company in which she has launched 7 albums. In fact, her singing career spans through the year 2004, being her most recent album "Amor del Bueno" produced by Joan Sebastian and launched by Ole Music/Universal.