Alma Martinez

Alma Martinez is a Mexican-American actress, stage director, and professor of theatre, born on March 18, 1953, in Monclova, Mexico. Her career has encompassed Broadway, Off-Broadway, regional theatre, and stages in Mexico and Europe, as well as an extensive body of film and television work.

Martinez's professional stage career began in 1979 when she joined the Center Theatre Group production of Luis Valdez's Zoot Suit. That collaboration led to her film debut in Valdez's 1981 screen adaptation of the same work, an American classic that helped establish her screen presence. Her work with Valdez has continued across more than 30 years. Early in her film career, Australian director Fred Schepisi cast her in his American debut, Barbarosa, alongside Willie Nelson and Gary Busey. She subsequently appeared in Under Fire, which featured Nick Nolte, Gene Hackman, Ed Harris, and Jean Louis Trintignant.

Martinez made her Broadway debut in 1993 in In the Summer House, directed by Joanne Akalaitis. The production featured Dianne Wiest, Frances Conroy, and Liev Schreiber. Her stage work has extended across more than 100 major productions performed in the United States, Mexico, and Europe, at venues including the Vivian Beaumont Theatre, the Mark Taper Forum, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, the Pasadena Playhouse, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, South Coast Repertory Theatre, the Denver Center Theatre Company, and international stages such as Teatro Juan Ruiz De Alarcon in Mexico City, Teatro Greco in Taormina, Italy, Castello Sforesco in Milan, and Neiuwe Scene in Antwerp, Belgium, among others.

Her television credits include the Peabody Award-winning drama series The Bridge, starring Demián Bichir and Diane Kruger, and Corridos: Tales of Passion and Revolution, which featured Linda Ronstadt. In 2017, she portrayed Anna Alcala, the mother of Rodney Alcala, in the television film Dating Game Killer. Martinez has appeared in more than 20 features and independent films, among them Born in East L.A. with Cheech Marin, For Greater Glory with Andy Garcia and Oscar Isaac, Strike One with Danny Trejo, Cake with Jennifer Aniston, and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. Her voiceover work includes the award-winning documentaries The Panama Deception and Food Chains. In 2013, she was inducted into the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Following the completion of her PhD from Stanford, Martinez joined the University of California, Santa Cruz as an assistant professor in the Theater and Dance Department in 2001. She was promoted to associate professor with tenure in 2006, after which she moved to Pomona College, where she served as an assistant professor from 2006 until 2013. Following a tenure denial that was settled out of court in 2015, she became an artist-in-residence at the University of La Verne and subsequently joined that institution as an associate professor of theatre.