Emerging Star--on Spanish TV

Television personality Paula Diaz appears every bit the stereotypical Southern California beach girl: blond and blue-eyed with an outgoing personality, a model’s face, perfect teeth and a flirtatious smile.

The Anaheim Hills resident, 26, is one of four hosts of “Tremendo Sabado” (“Tremendous Saturday”), a three-hour variety show premiering internationally tonight on the Telemundo Spanish-language network. The program, which will be shown in 17 countries, will air in the Orange County-Los Angeles area at 7 p.m. on KVEA-TV, Channel 52.

“It’s a little bit of everything,” Diaz said of the fast-paced, heavily-promoted program that began taping just last week in a Miami studio with Latin music stars, including salsa queen Celia Cruz and pop singer Enrique Iglesias (Julio’s son).

“Lots of music, lots of dancers,” Diaz said. “They have really good people.”

On “Tremendo Sabado,” Diaz introduces segments, chats with the guests and keeps the enthusiasm of audience members at a high pitch.

“At first I was kind of shaky,” said Diaz, who flew to Miami on short notice while still recovering from painful foot surgery. “The show got put together really fast, so it was kind of difficult. But by the second day I was a different person, and you could see it on camera.”

Diaz also was a very different person when her family moved from Chile to Tustin in 1983. She was just 13 and could barely speak English. She went on to graduate from Tustin High School, attended a few classes at UC Irvine and now speaks English as if it were her native language.

Diaz said she embarked on her television career via modeling, doing “lots of print work, all the things you do when you’re trying to break into this business.”

Her first TV appearance came less than a year ago, after she was invited to appear as a panelist on Telemundo’s “El y Ella” (“He and She”), a talk show that explores gender-related topics.

“It was about men controlling women’s way of dressing,” said Diaz, who wore a head-turning outfit on the show. “I came on to defend a woman’s right to dress as she pleases. And I was a hit.”

That led to a seven-month job as a model on “Dando y Dando” (“Giving and Giving”), a frenetically paced, live game show featuring viewer call-ins.

“I was the Vanna White of Spanish-language TV,” Diaz said. “It was great fun. I’d say things like, ‘Hello, Connecticut. You’re on the air.’ I’d hand out big checks to the winners, that sort of thing. I learned a lot, I met a lot of great people. I guess I found my true calling.”

Then came the offer from “Tremendo Sabado,” and soon Diaz was performing in front of studio audiences in Miami.

“The applause is really kind of nice,” she said, “and the attention is kind of nice. I feel like Cinderella, because I grew up in a very hard-working, blue-collar family.”

Despite her strong cultural pride, Diaz said she has lost acting jobs because “of my non-ethnic look” and that “I’ve been told before to dye my hair dark. But, of course, I can’t dye my skin dark.”

She also likes to sing romantic, Spanish ballads, “those boleros that were so popular in the ‘40s and the ‘50s and have started to come back.”

“I’m still very much a Latina,” Diaz said. “It’s in your blood, you can feel it. But this is my home now.

“And I love French fries and catsup,” she added. “People in Chile cringe at that stuff.”