Monday, February 20, 2023

Majandra Delfino

Actress, Writer, Producer


Born: February 20, 1981 in Caracas, Venezuela

Birth Name: Marialejandra Delfino

Height: 5' 6" (1.68 m)


Majandra Delfino rose to fame in her role as Maria DeLuca on Roswell. Born in Caracas, Venezuela to a Cuban mother and Venezuelan father, Majandra lived between Caracas and Miami before permanently moving to Los Angeles in her late teens.


At 4 years old Majandra's parents reached a fork in the road when they discovered she could read music from a beat-up Schubert book yet practiced multiplication drills with just a rudimentary understanding of math. Majandra's parents chose the scholastic side and enrolled her in an academically focused school. Still, between the ages of 4 to 13 Majandra danced with the Miami Ballet, with acceptance to the junior company by age 9, while studying classical piano throughout. Majandra's parents hoped this would be enough. Only, by age 11, Majandra and her best friend Alana Chirino (daughter of famed Cuban salsa singer Willy Chirino) snuck out of the house to be two of the four hundred girls auditioning for an all-girls pop group. They, along with Alana's sister Nicole and good friend Samantha Gibb (daughter of Bee Gees Maurice Gibb) ended up getting chosen - forming the music group 'China Dolls' a soul-styled pop group under the Sony label. After opening for the Bee Gees at a benefit concert and other local shows, the girls enjoyed small success, resulting in an audition for Columbia Pictures' The Baby-Sitters Club. Of the 800 plus cattle call of young girls, Majandra was among the few to get a callback. Fueled by this encouragement, Majandra decided to pursue an acting career in addition to her music responsibilities - again, doing so by sneaking out of the house. Dismayed by her daughter's latest "non-academic" aspiration, Majandra's parents gave her a 6-month deadline to succeed. Within 2 months she was cast as a lead in MGM's major motion picture Zeus & Roxanne - and within three months she landed the coveted role of Tony Dana's daughter on NBC straight to series multi-camera sitcom The Tony Danza Show. But it wasn't until Roswell's breakout success that Majandra rose to fan-magazine fame. Her role as the sarcastic Maria DeLuca has sparked many fans all around the world and its cult following continues to grow today. While on her second season of Roswell Majandra was cast as Vanessa in Steven Soderbergh's Traffic for which she won an Alma Award. Despite her successes as an actor, Majandra stayed true to her musical roots, releasing The Sicks and TARTE, two self-produced albums in which she wrote, performed, produced and engineered. Other notable credits include the Warner Bros feature Life As We Know It and the critically acclaimed drama Don't Come Knocking, directed by Wim Wenders. Starring in a string of comedies from State of Georgia where Majandra played the Laverne to Raven Simone's Shirley, then The Office spin-off The Farm, where Majandra played the third of the trio entrusted to run the family business, as Rainn Wilson and Thomas Middleditch's little sister, to CBS' multi-cam comedy Friends with Better Lives that found Majandra playing a pregnant wife and friend to Kevin Connolly, Brooklyn Decker and Zoe Lister-Jones, Delfino found herself back on the comedy side of things. Under a development deal for two self-scribed shows, Majandra Delfino continues to produce and create her own material, only this time for the screen and not just music. Delfino is married to actor David Walton with whom she has two small children, Cecilia Delphine and Louis Augustus. Majandra will next be seen in the directorial debut of Zoe Lister-Jones' self-scribed Sundance contender, Band-Aid. Rumors of a third album continue to abound but there has been no concrete word from Majandra or her representation yet.


Film and television credits

 

YearTitleRoleNotes
1997Zeus and RoxanneJudith Dunhill
1997–1998The Tony Danza ShowTina DiMeo14 episodes
1999The Secret Life of GirlsNatalie Sanford
Katie JoplinSara Shotz7 episodes
1999–2002RoswellMaria DeLucaMain role; 60 episodes
2000Shriek If You Know What I Did Last Friday the 13thMartina MartinezDirect-to-video
TrafficVanessa
2001The Learning CurveAshley
2002R.S.V.P.Callie
2003ReesevilleIrish Buchanan
2004Boston PublicJill SharpEpisode "Chapter Seventy-Seven"
Celeste in the CityCeleste BlodgettTV movie
2005Don't Come Knocking1st Girl
2006Three Moons Over MilfordGrace WochuckEpisode "Unaired Pilot"
UltraSuzetteTV movie
Help Me Help YouPissed-Off Girl / LucyEpisodes "Pilot" and "The Mattress"
State's EvidenceTrudi
2008Heidi 4 PawsMiss Rottenmeier
QuarterlifeVanessa5 episodes
2009"Bent"MeganShort film
PullingLouiseTV movie
Web of LiesAbby TurnerTV movie
2010Life as We Know ItJenna
2011Men of a Certain AgeStellaEpisodes "The Pickup" and "A League of Their Owen"
State of GeorgiaJosephina "Jo" PyeMain role; 12 episodes
2012Family TrapSarahTV movie
2013The OfficeFannie SchruteEpisode "The Farm"
2014Friends with Better LivesAndi LutzMain role
2017Life in PiecesMarshaEpisode "Ear Scorn Registry Manuscript"
2017Band AidMaria
2017BoJack HorsemanHenriettaEpisode "Time's Arrow"

Discography

The Sicks (EP) (2001) Dripfeed

Le Prince Bleu D'Arthelius (2003) (CD single duet with RoBERT)

Tarte (2007) RVC Records

Music

Delfino sang in several Roswell episodes, such as "Viva Las Vegas", "Cry Your Name" and "Behind the Music". In the summer of 2000, she released three songs onto the internet, "Siren", "Bruises" and "Tattoo", written and produced in association with "Sci-Fi Lullaby." On October 31, 2001, she released the EP The Sicks on her own label, Dripfeed, without radio or television airplay.


Her second album, Tarte, was released on April 23, 2007 by her own record company, Red Velvet Cake Records. In February 2011, she announced via Twitter that she was working on her third studio album, scheduled for a late 2018 release.

Acting

Delfino was cast in MGM's Zeus & Roxanne before winning the role of Tina Dimeo in NBC's The Tony Danza Show, where she played Danza's teenage daughter. After playing Natalie Sanford in the independent film The Secret Life of Girls, Delfino was cast as Maria DeLuca on Roswell. On hiatus, she performed in the small role of Vanessa in Traffic. She also acted in Reeseville, Celeste in the City, R.S.V.P. and State's Evidence.


Delfino starred in a number of episodes of the NBC show Quarterlife, also shown on MySpaceTV, which started airing November 11, 2007. In 2011, she starred with Raven-Symoné in the show State of Georgia on ABC Family until its cancellation.


Delfino performed in ABC's pilot The Family Trap starring Mandy Moore and Stockard Channing. She was eight months pregnant with her first child during the shooting, so director Shawn Levy shot around the pregnancy for the entire project. One month after giving birth, Delfino was cast as Dwight Schrute's sister on NBC's The Office attempted spin-off, The Farm. NBC did not greenlight the series.

Early life

Delfino was born on February 20, 1981, in Caracas, Venezuela. Her father, Enrique Delfino, is Italian Venezuelan, and her mother, Mary Hellmund, is Cuban. As a child, she lived in Caracas and Miami, Florida, before moving to Los Angeles as a teenager.


Delfino's stage name, Majandra, is an amalgamation of her forenames, Maria Alejandra. It originated as a mispronunciation of her sister's that her family adopted as her nickname.

Majandra Delfino

Maria Alejandra Delfino (/məˈhɑːndrə dɛlˈfiːnoʊ/ mə-HAHN-drə del-FEE-noh; born February 20, 1981), known professionally as Majandra Delfino, is an American actress and singer. She is best known for her role as Maria DeLuca on Roswell, and as Andi on the CBS sitcom Friends with Better Lives.


Delfino at ATX TV Festival in June 2014


Majandra Delfino

Actress, Writer, Producer Born: February 20, 1981 in Caracas, Venezuela Birth Name: Marialejandra Delfino Height: 5' 6" (1.68...