Background

Ethnicity: A DNA test whose results were displayed on the show Faces of America (2010) stated that Eva Longoria's genetic ancestry is: 70% European, 27% Asian/Indigenous, 3% African.

Eva Longoria was born March 15, 1975, in Corpus Christi, Texas, the United States. She is the youngest of four daughters born to Ella Eva (Mireles) and Enrique Longoria, Jr. Her three older sisters are Elizabeth Judina, Emily Jeannette and Esmeralda Josephina. Her parents struggled very hard to give their daughters a decent childhood and upbringing by working on the farmland that had been passed to them through generations. On a particular episode of the Oprah Winfrey Show in the year 2006, Eva Longoria gave the viewers a glance into her childhood by taking the cameras to the place where she was brought up and showed how simple her early life was. She was also teased by her three sisters as 'la prieta fea,' which translates 'the ugly dark one’. She did not speak Spanish growing up, and did not learn the language until 2009.

According to research done in 2010 by Harvard professor and Faces of America host Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Longoria's oldest identifiable Spanish immigrant ancestor is her ninth great-grandfather, Lorenzo Suárez de Longoria (b. Oviedo, 1592), who immigrated to the Viceroyalty of New Spain (modern-day Mexico) in 1603. His family was based in a small village called Llongoria, Belmonte de Miranda, Asturias, Spain. Longoria is the Castellanized form of this Asturian-language surname.

In 1767, Longoria's seventh great-grandfather received almost 4,000 acres (16 km2) of land along the Rio Grande in a land grant from King Charles III of Spain. The family retained this land for more than a century. After the American -Mexican border was moved southwards in the aftermath of the Mexican-American War, the land ended up on the American side of the border. Her family had to deal with the influx of United States settlers following the Mexican-American War and the American Civil War.

Education

Eva went to Marvin P. Baker Middle School and also Roy Miller High School, where she was a cheerleader. She graduated with a degree in Bachelor of Science degree in Kinesiology from Texas A&M University-Kingsville. It was during this time that she was crowned Miss Corpus Christi in 1998. Eva joined a talent hunt contest that brought her to Los Angeles where she was signed by a theatrical agent.

Longoria received her master's degree in Chicano Studies from California State University, Northridge, in May 2013 following three years of study. Her thesis was entitled, "Success STEMS From Diversity: The Value of Latinas in STEM Careers."

Career

Longoria's life slightly changed when she became Miss Corpus Christi USA in 1998, which endorsed her determination to pursue a career in acting. When Eva came to Los Angeles, she was noticed and signed by a theatrical agent who got her an audition in a comedic play titled What the Rabbi Saw in which she was accepted. In 1999, she hosted a segment of the TV show, L.A. In A Day, produced by Gary Ghiaey. This was her first appearance on television.

Longoria landed in her first television role in the year 2000 in a guest appearance in a particular episode of Beverly Hills 90210. Yet another role that year came in the form of a guest appearance in General Hospital and Eva got a big break in The Young and the Restless. Her role as the psychotic Isabella Braña Williams shot her to fame and she was noticed by one and all. Her acting led her to win an ALMA award for Outstanding Actress in a Daytime Drama.

Longoria left The Young and the Restless in 2003 and appeared in the films Snitch'd (2003), Dragnet (2003), and TV series Senorita Justice (2004). In addition to those, Eva also co-starred and co-produced Hot Tamales Live: Spicy, Hot, and Hilarious, a comedy/variety show which has become a hit and been critically acclaimed. However, it was ABC's TV series Desperate Housewives that brought her to reach a tremendous success when it was launched in October 2004. Starred as adulteress Gabrielle Solis in the mega-hit, watched by over 27 million viewers each week, directly made her name well-known nationwide.

All the attention Longoria was getting from Desperate Housewives led to movie roles as well, and she appeared in Harsh Times (2005, with Christian Bale), The Sentinel (2006, with Michael Douglas) and The Heartbreak Kid (2007, with Ben Stiller), among others.

By the time Desperate Housewives came to an end in 2012, Longoria was pulling down nearly $400,000 per episode, making her one of the top-paid TV stars in the world. Longoria also remained involved in television, taking on a greater role behind the camera. She served as an executive producer for the dating reality show Ready for Love, which survived for only a few weeks in 2013. But she had more luck with Lifetime Television's Devious Maids, which also launched that year and continued into 2016. From 2013, she served as one of the executive producers of Devious Maids and directed the season two premiere, An Ideal Husband. In 2016, she also starred in the fourth season, in the episode Once More Unto the Bleach. She is also an executive producer of the documentaries The Harvest and Food Chains, for which she won a James Beard Foundation Award.

In late 2015, Longoria returned to series television with a starring role on the NBC sitcom Telenovela, but the show went off the air after only a few episodes. In 2017, Longoria directed the season three finale episode of the ABC comedy Black-ish.

In 2018, Longoria attended the premiere for her new film, "Dog Days" with co-stars Vanessa Hudgens (Tara) and Nina Dobrev (Elizabeth) on August 5, 2018.

On November 21, 2017, it was announced that ABC was developing an American adaptation of the Spanish TV series Gran Hotel. The pilot script for Grand Hotel was set to be written by Brian Tanen who was also set as an executive producer alongside Eva Longoria, Ben Spector, Oliver Bachert, and Christian Gockel. Production companies involved with the pilot include ABC Studios and UnveliEVAble Entertainment. On February 2, 2018, it was announced that ABC had given the production a pilot order. On February 23, 2018, it was reported that Ken Olin would direct the pilot episode.

In March 2008, Longoria opened the restaurant Beso (which means "kiss" in Spanish) in Hollywood, along with partner and celebrity chef Todd English. The restaurant is located on Hollywood Boulevard and is accompanied by Kiss, a Victorian-themed nightclub on the floor above. The Hollywood Beso was scheduled to be the focus of a pilot episode for a tentative reality series called Beso: Waiting on Fame, to air on VH1 in late 2010. In 2009, Longoria and various investor-partners opened a Beso restaurant, with a nightclub called Eve above it, in the Crystals retail and entertainment district of CityCenter in Las Vegas.

In 2011, the corporation Beso LLC, owner of the Vegas restaurant-and-nightclub venture, with listed assets of about $2.5 million and Longoria as a 32 percent shareholder, filed for Chapter 11 protection, entering bankruptcy proceedings, in order to restructure nearly $5.7 million in debt and other liabilities. On July 28, 2011, the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for Nevada ordered Longoria to appear in Las Vegas on August 20 in order to be examined about the bankrupt restaurant's finances.

Longoria's first book, Eva's Kitchen: Cooking with Love for Family and Friends, was published in April 2011. In terms of food-related promotions, in 2012 and 2013, Longoria paired with Iron Chef Michael Symon for a promotion for PepsiCo's Lay's potato chips contest called Do Us A Flavor. The promotion encourages consumers to submit new flavor ideas and fans to vote for their favorite on Facebook. The person who creates the winning flavor is awarded $1 million or one percent of the chip flavor's net sales.

In 2015, Longoria announced that she had teamed up with sportswear manufacturer Sunrise Brands to create a women's apparel collection, set to launch Fall 2016.

In March 2017, Eva Longoria launched her clothing line website on her official site.

Achievements

• 

  Based on her earnings from June 1, 2009, to June 1, 2010, Eva Longoria was ranked No. 4 on Forbes Prime Time's 10 Top-Earning Women with an estimated $12 million. Longoria topped the Forbes magazine's list of the highest-paid TV actresses for 2011. She also received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6906 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California on April 16, 2018.
  
  Longoria is the only woman to be ranked #1 on Maxim magazine's Hot 100 Women list twice (2005 and 2006). People magazine named her one of 2012 Most Beautiful at Every Age.
  
  Of the four leading actresses of Desperate Housewives (2004), Longoria is the only one not to receive an Emmy Award nomination for her performance on the series.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Eva's Kitchen

    (Eva Longoria may be most recognized for her role as Despe...)

    2011

• movie

  • Senorita Justice

    (Anna Rios, a young woman hell-bent on seeking revenge aft...)

    2004
  • Lower Learning

    (Welcome to Geraldine Ferraro Elementary, where the teache...)

    2008
  • A Dark Truth

    (A former CIA operative-turned-political talk show host (A...)

    2013
  • The Sentinel

    (Compromised by his affair with the first lady, a veteran ...)

    2006
  • Without Men

    (Without Men is a comedy about the women of a small and re...)

    2010
  • Harsh Times

    (An unstable Gulf War veteran (Christian Bale) with a savi...)

    2005
  • Over Her Dead Body

    (When Kate is killed by an ice sculpture on her wedding da...)

    2008
  • The Heartbreak Kid

    (When the single and indecisive Eddie (Ben Stiller) meets ...)

    2007
  • Visions

    (Isla Fisher and Jim Parsons star in this thriller about a...)

    2015
  • For Greater Glory

    (An ex-war hero leads a ragtag group of rebels in their fi...)

    2012
  • Lowriders

    (A young street artist is caught between the lowrider worl...)

    2016
  • Dog Days

    (Dog Days follows a group of interconnected people in Los ...)

    2018
  • Carlita's Secret

    (One night, at a Miami nightclub she is caught in the midd...)

    2004
  • Foodfight

    (When the lights are turned off and the doors are locked, ...)

    2012
  • Arthur Christmas

    (Santa's youngest son Arthur embarks on a magical adventur...)

    2011
  • Frontera

    (Miguel crosses the Arizona-Mexican border illegally and i...)

    2014
  • Overboard

    (A selfish, rich playboy, Leonardo, fires a hard-working s...)

    2018
  • Crazy Kind of Love

    (A broken family finds their relationships to one another ...)

    2012
  • Baytown Outlaws

    (After her ex-husband Carlos shoots Celeste three times in...)

    2012
  • Snitch'd 2003

• TV series

  • Desperate Housewives

    (The first season of Desperate Housewives introduced Susan...)

  • Devious Maids

    (Inspired by the hit telenovela, "Ellas son la Alegría del...)

    2013
  • Grand Hotel

    (The last family-owned hotel in Miami Beach.)

    2019

Religion

Longoria was raised Catholic, but like a number of American Catholics today, her faith journey has led her to adopt positions that differ from official church teachings. She's pro-abortion rights and she supports marriage equality.

Still, Longoria has been upfront about how important her religion is to her. She’s spoken publicly about how her family would attend masses and honor saints’ days when she was a child, and she reportedly grew up participating in Catholic Daughters of America, a woman’s organization within the church: “I really looked at [the church] as an institution that provided guidance as to how we were raised. To me, the Catholic church was inclusive. It included the blind, the poor, the minorities, the disabled.”

Politics

In 2012, Longoria was one of seven Californians named to the post of co-chair of Barack Obama's reelection campaign. On September 6, she spoke at the 2012 Democratic National Convention where she endorsed President Obama's reelection. In May 2014, she initiated the Latino Victory Project to raise funds for candidates and efforts to get out the vote. An executive producer of the documentaries The Harvest and Food Chains, she is a supporter of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers. Longoria spoke at the 2016 Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia on July 26, 2016.

Longoria has a keen interest in immigration. She accompanied a border patrol in Arizona and has immersed herself in the issues to understand the Mexican and the United States points of view. She has described Arizona's SB 1070 immigration law as unconstitutional.

Views

KIn 2006 Longoria founded Eva's Heroes, a charity which helps developmentally disabled children. She is the national spokesperson for PADRES Contra El Cancer. She signed shoes for the Spirit of Women Red Shoe Celebrity Auction. Longoria also supports the Clothes Off Our Back Foundation, OmniPeace, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, the National Stroke Association, Project HOME, and St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. Longoria is an executive producer of Shine Global Inc.'s documentary The Harvest which is focused on the 500,000 child migrant farm workers in the U.S. and promote awareness and support to enact the Children's Act for Responsible Employment (CARE Act).

Longoria's other charity, the Eva Longoria Foundation aims to close the education gap plaguing Latinas and confront Latino poverty. She has stated that "The Eva Longoria Foundation supports programs which help Latinas excel in school and attend college. Additionally, we work to provide Latina entrepreneurs with career training, mentorship, capital, and opportunity." The foundation offers nine-week "parent engagement" courses to help Latino parents and has a mentorship program for Latinas and other extracurricular activities as well as loans to help Latina-owned businesses. It is co-funded by philanthropist Howard Buffett son of investor Warren Buffett.

Longoria was named Philanthropist of the Year in 2009 by The Hollywood Reporter for 'her commitment to Latino causes and giving back to the community. She appeared on Fort Boyard in 2009, helping attract more than €20,000 for the Make-A-Wish Foundation.

In 2009, Longoria enrolled in a Master's program in Chicano Studies and political science at Cal State University, Northridge. According to Longoria, "because of my involvement with the NCLR and my charity work, I really wanted a better, more authentic understanding of what my community has gone through so I can help create change." She graduated with a master's degree in Chicano Studies in May 2013.

In September 2009 Longoria was appointed to a bi-partisan commission called to determine to establish a National Museum of the American Latino. In October 2012 Longoria spoke at the McAfee Focus 2012 event, where the "theme of safety-beyond computers-emerged. Safety involving financial security, emotional security, and the other results from Longoria's philanthropic efforts."

In March 2017, Longoria was listed by UK-based company Richtopia at number 42 in the list of 200 Most Influential Philanthropists and Social Entrepreneurs Worldwide.

Quotations: "I love being a woman. I love the sexiness we get to exude. But the best thing about being a woman is the power we have over men."

"I don't agree with all the boundaries we put on everything. Women are forever discounting men for all sorts of silly reasons - too old, too young, wrong haircut. Give the guy a chance and he may surprise you. I've definitely been pleasantly surprised by my choices and I've always had plenty of choice."

"You can't do it all. So one thing I consciously did was to focus on humans. Let me tell you, in America there are as many nonprofits for saving puppies, dogs, cats and fish as for humans or children. I don't want PETA to jump all over me, but I just think, "You know what? I'm going to dedicate my efforts to human beings." I thought long and hard about where I want to make a difference. That's when I came up with the Eva Longoria Foundation to promote the education of Latina high school girls. I wanted to be efficient and effective, so that's why I chose Latinas. Also, I am one."

"People judge women and put them in a box. Like 'You can be the smart one; she's the fun one; she's the hard worker; she's the career one.' It's like 'No, we're all of these things.'"

Personality

Contrary to popular belief, Longoria is not related to Tampa Bay Rays third baseman Evan Longoria. However, after the Rays won the 2008 American League Championship Series, she sent Evan a bottle of champagne and a note thanking him for doing such a great job holding up the family name.

Physical Characteristics: Eva Longoria has a slim built, the height of 5 ft 2 in or 157 cm, and the weight of 53 kg or 117 pounds. Longoria is the only one among her parents' children to have dark skin, dark eyes, and dark hair. Her three sisters all have fair hair, blue eyes, and Caucasian skin color. Eva thought for a long time that she was adopted because of her features.

Interests

• shooting, hunting

• Politicians

  Barack Obama

• Writers

  The House of the Spirits, Eva Luna, Daughter of Fortune - Isabel Allende, Gabriel Garcia Marquez

• Artists

  Cadile, Body Language, Stop Staring, Victoria Beckham

• Sport & Clubs

  basketball, kickboxing, tennis

• Athletes

  Monica Puig

• Music & Bands

  Bruno Mars, Bon Jovi, Ed Sheeran, Coldplay, Megadeth

Connections

Longoria was married to actor Tyler Christopher, star of General Hospital, from 2002 to 2004. Longoria met Tony Parker, retired Spurs point guard, and Charlotte Hornets point guard, in November 2004. In 2006 they got engaged and the following summer tied the knot in Paris. They had a Catholic wedding ceremony at the Saint-Germain l'Auxerrois Church on July 7, 2007. On November 17, 2010, Longoria filed for divorce from Parker in Los Angeles, citing "irreconcilable differences". In the divorce petition, Longoria requested that her maiden name be restored. She also sought spousal support from Parker. The couple had a prenuptial agreement that was signed in June 2007, a month before their wedding, and amended two years later in June 2009.

On December 13, 2015, Longoria reported her engagement to Mexican businessman José Antonio "Pepe" Bastón Patiño, then the president of Televisa, the largest media company in Latin America. Bastón and Longoria met on a blind date arranged by a mutual friend in Mexico City; at the time, Bastón did not know who Longoria was and originally declined the invitation to meet her because of his busy schedule. The couple was married in Mexico on May 21, 2016.

On December 19, 2017, it was reported that Longoria was pregnant with her first child. She gave birth to her son in June 2018 named Santiago Enrique Bastón.

Father:

Enrique Longoria, Jr.

Mother:

Ella Eva (Mireles) Longoria

Sister:

Elizabeth Judina Longoria

Sister:

Emily Jeannette Longoria

Sister:

Esmeralda Josephina Longoria

Ex-husband:

Tyler Christopher

Ex-husband:

Tony Parker

husband:

José Antonio "Pepe" Bastón Patiño

Son:

Santiago Enrique Bastón

Acquaintance:

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

colleague:

Felicity Huffman

colleague:

Marcia Cross

Friend:

Victoria Beckham

Longoria is a longtime best friend to fashion icon Victoria Beckham, who designed her wedding dress for her marriage to José Bastón. She is also the Godmother of Victoria Beckham and David Beckham's daughter Harper Beckham.

Friend:

David Beckham

Acquaintance:

Selena Gomez

References

• Eva Longoria on Instagram