Cristina Saralegui: 1948—: Journalist, Talk Show Host, Publisher, Author
Started A Career In Magazines
Born into a media family, Saralegui fancied herself a natural communicator. She attended the University of Miami, majoring in mass communications and creative writing. Her graduation plans were thwarted when her father lost most of his money in a bad business deal, an occurrence that forced her to drop out. Saralegui was nine credits short of her degree, but he had decided that it was more important for her brother, Paxti, to go to college and he could only afford to send one of them. "He called me up and he said, 'Look, as a Cuban father, I have to send your brother to college. He's going to have to support someone someday, and somebody's son will support you.' That's called machismo," she told National Public Radio.
Determined to overcome this crippling sexism, long rooted in the traditions of the Latin culture, Saralegui vowed to work twice as hard to prove herself. She ended up taking a $40-a-week job in the photo library at Vanidades, one of the magazines started by her grandfather. "At the time it was a huge challenge," she recalled in her 1998 autobiography My Life as a Blonde. "I had to teach myself to write in Spanish. Having attended high school and college in the United States, and receiving all my formal training in English, I was more fluent in the English language." By 1973 she had acquired a staff writing job at the Spanish-language edition of Cosmopolitan, but soon quit to give newspaper journalism a try. After a short stint at the Miami Herald, where she realized that daily journalism wasn't for her, Saralegui went back to Vanidades. Within a year she was asked to take over a small magazine called Intimadades, which soon began to outsell Vanidades. By 1979 she received the top post at Cosmopolitan-en-Español. "I was terrified," she recalled in an interview with the Boston Globe. But her mission to liberate Latin women paid off. "In ten years under my direction Cosmopolitan became the second most important magazine in Latin America. We passed Good Housekeeping. We left the housewives behind."
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Brief BiographiesBiographies: Paul Anthony Samuelson (1915– ) Biography to Bessie Smith (1895–1937) BiographyCristina Saralegui: 1948—: Journalist, Talk Show Host, Publisher, Author Biography - Started A Career In Magazines, Made Career Move To Television, Sought To Educate Hispanic Community