LIVELY LATINA IS MAKING A NAME FOR HERSELF--HER OWN

“When I first got started here,” said Maria Conchita Alonso, “they suggested I change my name. Too Latin-sounding, they said. But I refused. If people could manage a name like Arnold Schwarzenegger, I decided, they could certainly cope with mine.”

If you didn’t even know that this Cuban-born actress had got started, that’s probably because you didn’t see Paul Mazursky’s “Moscow on the Hudson” in which she played Robin Williams’ Italian immigrant girlfriend.

Even the severest critics had a good word to say about her in that movie--some had several--and this led to roles in three more films, all of them being screened this year.

No wonder this effervescent actress, one year short of 30, with teeth by Staybrite and eyes by Fireflash, shows the enthusiasm of a puppy just out of quarantine.

“Three films,” she said, curled up on the sofa of her newly acquired Beverly Hills home. “It’s exciting. So I do have an accent. So I won’t ever be able to play the girl next door. Who cares?”

Who indeed--when right after finishing “Moscow on the Hudson,” three movies came along, all of which required an actress who could drop her h’s without embarrassment.

In Blake Edwards’ “A Fine Mess,” which opened Friday, she plays the Chilean wife of a gangster.

For the audition she dressed suitably mollish, tooled up to Edwards in her ’64 Jaguar convertible and then, just as she rolled to a stop, the car exploded in clouds of smoke and steam. She leaped out and peered under the hood. When all she could see was more smoke and steam, she flung up her hands in frustration. This struck Edwards as so funny that he gave her the role without her reading for it.

Next comes “Touch and Go,” in which she co-stars with Michael Keaton. In this movie, opening Aug. 29, she plays the mother of a streetwise 11-year-old boy who involves her with a hockey player (Keaton).

Then, around Christmastime, her most important movie to date opens--Walter Hill’s “Extreme Prejudice,” which stars her with Nick Nolte and Powers Boothe. She has high hopes for this one because it’s dramatic stuff about drug trafficking and money laundering along the Texas-Mexican border. She plays a Mexican singer.

“I think I smile only once during the whole movie,” she said. “I’m delighted. I want people to realize I’m a dramatic actress too.”

Although it seems she’s only just getting started in her career, this vivacious actress had quite a lot going for her in Venezuela before she decided to try her luck in the United States four years ago.

Having moved from Cuba along with her parents when she was 5, she became Miss Teenager of the World when she was just 14. Four years later she was Miss Venezuela. And when she went to London for the Miss World contest it seemed she had a good chance.

Wrong.

“I love food,” she said. “I love to eat. Because I was so nervous about the contest, I ate and ate. So much so that when it came to the night of the contest I couldn’t even get into the dress I’d bought.”

So no Miss World.

But just having been Miss Venezuela helped and, once back home, she began doing plays and TV programs and recorded her first album under the name of Ambar. Why Ambar? “They wanted to make me sound mysterious,” she said.

Soon her singing career took off. Her album “Maria Conchita” went to platinum. Herb Alpert will be executive producer of her next American album.

“I’ve been so lucky,” she said. “Maybe it’s because I have a very positive attitude about everything. It really does help. But I know how big a part luck plays too. My first film here was ‘Fear City’ with Tom Berenger, and that did nothing.

“So I doubt I’d have got ‘Moscow on the Hudson’ if I hadn’t gone to a party and my picture got into the Hollywood Reporter. Paul Mazursky’s casting agent’s secretary saw it and got in touch with me. Now that really is luck.”

Maria Conchita Alonso is proud both of her Cuban blood and her Venezuelan upbringing. And both countries, it seems, are happy to claim her as their own. She travels on a Venezuelan passport and goes back regularly, but she loves it here in Los Angeles.

“When I was growing up, my parents sent me to school in France and Switzerland,” she said. “They wanted to give me independence, and they did. I love Europe, but I love the sun more. So I stay here. I need warmth all the time. I am Latin, remember. . . . “