Rachel Ticotin

Rachel Ticotin is an American actress born on November 1, 1958, in the Bronx, New York. She is the daughter of a Puerto Rican mother and a Polish-Jewish father, who worked as a used-car salesman, and she grew up as one of six siblings. To fund her acting training, Ticotin worked as a babysitter and also took on roles at New York's Public Theater, where she served as both a manager and an usher. She additionally worked as a production assistant on films shot in New York during this period. In her fifties, Ticotin enrolled at Columbia University to study English, graduating in 2019 as the first of her six siblings to earn a college degree.

Ticotin's screen career began in 1978 when she appeared as a dancer in King of the Gypsies. Around the same time, she acted in the off-Broadway production of Miguel Piñero's The Sun Always Shines for the Cool and received an onscreen production assistant credit on Brian De Palma's Dressed to Kill. Her first significant film role came in 1981, when she was cast as Isabella, the love interest of Paul Newman's character, in Fort Apache, The Bronx. That same year, she was named among twelve promising new actors in John Willis' Screen World Vol. 33. In 1983, she joined the cast of the NBC television drama Love and Honor in a regular role.

Her film work spans several decades and includes Critical Condition (1987), in which she played Rachel Atwood, and Total Recall (1990), where she portrayed Melina opposite Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sharon Stone, earning a Saturn Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress. In 1993, she played Detective Sandra Torres in Falling Down alongside Michael Douglas and Robert Duvall, and in 1995 she appeared as Doña Inez, the Mexican mother of Don Juan, in the romantic comedy Don Juan DeMarco, with Johnny Depp in the title role. Her 1997 film Con Air, in which she played prison guard Sally Bishop alongside Nicolas Cage and John Malkovich, brought her an ALMA Award nomination for Outstanding Actress in a Feature Film, as well as a Blockbuster Entertainment Award nomination for Favorite Supporting Actress in an Action/Adventure Film. That same year, she appeared in First Time Felon opposite Omar Epps, earning an additional ALMA Award nomination for Outstanding Actress in a Made-for-Television Movie or Mini-Series.

Ticotin's television credits include appearances in Ohara (1987), Women on the Inside (1991), Crime & Punishment (1993), and Disney's Gargoyles (1994). She was cast as Vangie Gonzalez Taylor in the second season of PBS's American Family, a series that also featured Edward James Olmos, Esai Morales, Raquel Welch, and Kate del Castillo. In the second season of ABC's Lost, she played Captain Teresa Cortez, the mother of Michelle Rodriguez's character Ana Lucia Cortez. In September 2010, she joined the NBC legal drama Law & Order: LA as Lieutenant Arleen Gonzales, reshooting scenes that had originally been performed by Wanda De Jesus. She guest starred in the "Warriors" episode of Blue Bloods in 2013, playing Carmen Castillo, and in 2018 she appeared as Dr. Marie Cerone on the ABC medical drama Grey's Anatomy. Her film work also includes Man on Fire (2004), in which she played Mariana, and The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (2005). Across her career, Ticotin has accumulated credits in more than forty films and television series.

On Broadway, Ticotin appeared in a production of Macbeth in 2008. In her personal life, she was married to actor David Caruso from 1984 to 1987, and the two have a daughter, Greta, born in 1984. Since 1998, she has been married to actor Peter Strauss.