Background
She is best known for her roles in Stand and Deliver, for which she won an Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Female, and in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country as Azetbur, the daughter of Klingon Chancellor Gorkon.
She is best known for her roles in Stand and Deliver, for which she won an Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Female, and in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country as Azetbur, the daughter of Klingon Chancellor Gorkon.
Her other film roles include Louisiana Bamba (1987) as Ritchie Valens" mother Connie Valenzuela. And Family Business (1989) as the wife of Vito McMullen (Dustin Hoffman). DeSoto"s first television role was in the series A.E.S. Hudson Street (1978) as Nurse Rosa Santiago.
She starred in the short-lived series The Redd Foxx Show (1986).
She has made guest appearances on many television series, including Cannon, Kung Fu, Barnaby Jones, Barney Miller, Melrose Place, Murder, She Wrote, The Bold and the Beautiful and Law & Order. DeSoto was born in San Jose, California on September 2, 1950.
She spent her early years handpicking fruit, particularly apples. DeSoto graduated from San Jose State University, double majoring in Spanish literature and drama.
During her tenure at SJSU, DeSoto rehearsed and performed with the Light Opera Company.
DeSoto made her film debut in 1979 with The In-Laws. She appeared opposite Nick Nolte and Debra Winger in Cannery Row (1982). In 1986, she appeared opposite Rob Lowe and Demi Moore in About Last Night, playing Mistress
Lyons.
That same year, she portrayed waitress Diana Olmos in the short-lived sitcom, The Redd Foxx Show. In 1987, DeSoto appeared in the biographic film Louisiana Bamba. In that film, she plays Connie Valenzuela, the mother of Ritchie Valens, respectively played by Lou Diamond Phillips.
The next year, DeSoto collaborated with Phillips again in the 1988 biopic Stand and Deliver, where she portrayed Fabiola Escalante, the wife of Jaime Escalante (Edward James Olmos).
In 1989, she played the wife of Dustin Hoffman"s character in Family Business. That same year, she landed the principal role in Face of the Enemy.
She also played Azetbar in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991). DeSoto portrayed Linda in The 24 Hour Woman (1999).
She has also acted in the soap opera, The Bold and the Beautiful.
DeSoto wrote and appeared in “A Woman in Progress/Canto de Oro, Cuento de Mujer” that was produced by the Intar Theater group in New York in 2005.