obits

Lupe Ontiveros Dead at 69

Actress Lupe Ontiveros arrives at the 2011 NCLR ALMA Awards held at Santa Monica Civic Auditorium on September 10, 2011 in Santa Monica, California.
Photo: Valerie Macon/Getty Images

Actress Lupe Ontiveros, best known for her roles in Selena and The Goonies, died today of liver cancer, TMZ reports. She was 69. Ontiveros was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for her role in 2000’s Chuck and Buck, and nominated for an Emmy in 2005 for her role on Desperate Housewives, but she’s most familiar to audiences for portraying maids — which she said she’d done 300 times, including stage performances. “I’ve had a hell of a good time playing those maids,” she told L.A. Weekly in 2002. “No matter how much I resent the stupidity that is written into them, the audacity that the industry has when they portray us in such a nonsensical, idiotic, such — oh my God! — such a degrading manner, still, my humor survives in these maids,” she said. “I’m very proud of them.”

Lupe Ontiveros Dead at 69