Miriam Colón

Míriam Colón (August 20, 1936 – March 3, 2017) appeared on Sanford and Son as Carlotta Fuentes, older sister of next-door neighbor Julio, in the Season 4 episode titled "Julio and Sister and Nephew". A revered Puerto-Rican born veteran actress of stage/film and TV since the 1950's, Miriam was the founder and director of the Puerto Rican Traveling Theater in New York City.

Early years
Colón (birth name: Míriam Colón Valle ) was born in Ponce, Puerto Rico. She was a young girl in the 1940s when her recently divorced mother moved the family to a public housing project called "Residencial Las Casas", located in Barrio Obrero, San Juan. She attended the Ramon Baldorioty de Castro High School in Old San Juan, where she actively participated in the school's plays. Her first drama teacher, Marcos Colón (no relation) believed that she was very talented and with his help she was permitted to observe the students in the Drama Department of the University of Puerto Rico. She was a good student in high school and was awarded scholarships that enabled her to enroll in the "Dramatic Workshop and Technical Institude" and also in "The Lee Strasburg Acting Studio" in New York City.

Career
In 1953, Colón debuted as an actress in Peloteros (Baseball Players), starring Ramón (Diplo) Rivero, a film produced in Puerto Rico, and in which she played a character called "Lolita."

That year, Colón moved to New York City, where she was accepted by Actors Studio co-founder Elia Kazan after a single audition, thus becoming the Studio's first Puerto Rican member. In New York, Colón worked in theater and later landed a role on the CBS-TV daytime soap opera Guiding Light. On one occasion she attended a performance of Rene Marques' La Carreta (The Oxcart). That presentation motivated her to form the first Hispanic theater group, with the help of "La Carreta"'s producer, Roberto Rodríguez, called "El Circuito Dramatico".

In 1954 Miriam appeared on stage in "In The Summer House" at the Play House in New York City. Between 1954 and 1974, Colón made guest appearances in television shows such as Peter Gunn and Alfred Hitchcock Presents. She appeared mostly in westerns such as Gunsmoke, Bonanza, The High Chaparral, and Have Gun, Will Travel.

Colón appeared in the 1961 film One-eyed Jacks as "the Redhead". In 1979, she starred alongside fellow Puerto Rican actors José Ferrer, Raúl Juliá, and Henry Darrow in Life of Sin, a film in which she portrayed Isabel la Negra, a real-life Puerto Rican brothel owner. In 1983, she played the mother of Tony Montana (played by Al Pacino) in Scarface. She was also cast as "María" in the 1999 film Gloria, which starred Sharon Stone.

The Puerto Rican Traveling Theatre
In the late 1980s, Colón founded, The Puerto Rican Traveling Theatre on West 47th street in Manhattan, New York. The company presents Off-Broadway productions onsite and goes on tour. She is the director of the company and she has appeared in these PRTT productions:
 * The Ox Cart (1966–1967)
 * The Boiler Room (1993)
 * Simpson Street
 * Señora Carrar's Rifles

Personal life and death
Colón was married to George Paul Edgar from 1966 until his death in 1976. She lived the final years of her life in Albuquerque, New Mexico with her second husband Fred Valle. Colón died on March 3, 2017, at the age of 80, of complications from a pulmonary infection.

Broadway

 * In The Summer House (1954)
 * The Innkeepers (1956)
 * The Wrong Way Lightbulb (1969)

Awards
In 1993, Miriam received an "Obie Award" for "Lifetime Achievement in the Theater." A biography of Miriam Colon, titled Miriam Colón - Actor and Theater, was written by Mayra Fernandez. In 2000, Míriam received the HOLA Raúl Juliá Founders Award, presented by the Hispanic Organization of Latin Actors (HOLA).