COVER STORY
PRIME TIME
As a Spanish-language TV anchor, producer, single mom of three, overall celebrity and now, English-language TV Personality, Maria Celeste Arraras’ crossover star is rising.
By Regina Medina

Every day is an adventure,” says Telemundo TV star, María Celeste
Arrarás. “Every day is a crazy adventure.”
Luckily, the anchor and managing editor of the Spanish-language network’s hit television show Al Rojo Vivo con María Celeste and single mother of three children, the sure-footed 45-year-old manages to handle each day’s new escapades effortlessly.
From her daily 6 a.m. start, Arrarás is on the go, go, go. The Puerto Rican
devours five different national newspapers including her hometown daily, The Miami Herald, before switching gears and donning an apron—the better to prepare 7 a.m. breakfast for her brood—Julian, 8, Adrian, 7 and Lara, 5. All this before her daily 8 a.m. conference call with Al Rojo Vivo staffers to discuss possible stories for the show that airs weekdays at 5 p.m. eastern standard time.
Whew.
Arrarás might be referring to her life in general, but perhaps unconsciously, she’s also talking about Al Rojo Vivo—a one-hour “paella-style” show that’s part infotainment, part hard news and part offbeat stories. Covering topics that range from illegal immigration to Lasik eye surgery to celebrity gossip, it’s a show that’s ebbing and flowing constantly, even during the broadcast.
In early September during the Mexican presidential elections, Arrarás hosted Al Rojo Vivo live for the East Coast affiliates and intended to air a second live show for the West Coast for the final state-of-the-nation address by President Vicente Fox.
“Breaking news is my passion and in this case it was something historic for Mexico,” she says.
However, the scene soon turned, and left-wing legislators angered by the results of the recent and bitter election caused chaos in the chamber and forced Fox to abandon his speech before Congress and broadcast it later from his residence. Instead of the prepared speech, it was the ruckus that became news. Again, her ability to swiftly change gears without missing a beat, kicks in.
“The adrenaline keeps going. [There’s] no time to think about anything,” she says about the constantly changing show. “I’m always on my toes. I like it that way.”
Apparently so do the audiences. Al Rojo Vivo is one of the most watched TV shows in its time slot in New York City, occassionally surpassing the amount of viewers of both Spanish and English language programs on the same time slot.
NBC-owned Telemundo hired the super-popular Arrarás away from its bigger rival Univision, where she was already a host of the program Primer Impacto, in a high-profile deal that shocked the Spanish-language broadcast industry in 2002.
The deal also included heavy cross-promotion between Telemundo and NBC, which had just purchased the smaller Spanish-language network. To date, she has made appearances on a number of the network’s programs. She has co-hosted The Today Show, acted on two episodes on the campy soap Passions and reported for the newsmagazine Dateline.
Labels soon started being bandied about, and some even referred to her as “the Katie Couric of Spanish-language television,” for example. NBC President Andrew Lack even chimed, telling The New York Times, “She’s a star, along the lines of talent like Diane Sawyer and Jane Pauley.”
But, Arrarás does not revel in such comparisons, nor does she wallow in them.
“Honestly, I understand why it happens. People from [the] Anglo market want to portray [me] and what I do to those who don’t know me,” she says. “I take it as a compliment because they compare me to successful women.”
She doesn’t think she’s like any woman out there in high-profile TV news land, though she may share some characteristics with each one, she says.
One day, comparisons will disappear. “Because the public will know me for myself,” she says. And Arrarás seems to be on her way: She appeared on the cover of a recent issue of Newsweek, which named her as one of their “Top 20 Women in Leadership.”
It’s a nice recognition for a woman who, other than being an Olympic-caliber swimmer in the 1970s—hasn’t always been considered a major player.
After graduating from Tulane University in New Orleans with a journalism degree, the daughter of a University of Mayagüez chancellor and a chemist mother, returned to Puerto Rico, where she landed a copywriting job in advertising. Eventually, she landed a reporting job at a startup 24-hour news channel, according to her first-person account in Newsweek. From there, a collection of meaty reports on civil wars in Latin America and on glasnost and perestroika in the former Soviet Union got her noticed. She soon landed a job with New York’s Univision affiliate.
Her award-winning work got her a co-hosting gig with Myrka Dellanos on what eventually became the popular newsmagazine Primer Impacto. Its format was different from conventional TV news reporting and anchoring. Arrarás told The New York Times in 2002 that the new job allowed her to “smile on the air. It was refreshing and different and it suited my personality better.”
But after almost 10 years on the program, she sought a new adventure in the form of being her own boss on her own show and on a new network.
“I decided it was time to grow in a different direction,” she says.
Enter Telemundo.
Her children, one of whom she adopted from Russia, have always known her to be awed in public. Recently, her oldest, Julian, has been curious about the brouhaha that forms around his mother when they are out.

“He asked me, ‘Mom, tu eres
famosa?’ she said. “Well I’m perceived as famous. ... More importantly, I’m your mom, a very hard-working woman who works for your future,” she remembers answering. “The type of work that I do comes with the
territory.”
Also included in the job are a boatload of invitations to this and that. Arrarás says she’s just not that a big partygoer, thus she rarely attends such events.
“Truthfully, everything is so shallow, all small talk, so superficial,” she says. “I dislike small talk, conversation that has to do with anything material. … You come back [home] and you feel empty.”
Instead, she opts for low-key dinners with friends, who tend to be outside the news business. She calls them “hard-core friends.” One close friend is Raúl de Molina, from popular Spanish-language talkshow El Gordo y La Flaca and his wife, who was also her college friend.

Between her juggling of family, friends and a high-profile job, Arrarás is always on the prowl for some “María Celeste” time. Lately, she’s been trying to take a more Eastern approach and practice yoga.
“It’s the one thing that keeps me sane,” she says. “I never ever have time for me.”
“You can do it so long until you burn out.”
And nobody would want that.

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