Daisy Fuentes

Daisy Fuentes made TV history in the late 1980s as the first person to do double duty as a veejay on both MTV and its Spanish-language sister network MTV Latino. She was born in Cuba and spent part of her formative years in Spain before her family arrived in the USA and settled in New Jersey in the early 1970s. A neighbor employed in fashion asked a 16-year-old Fuentes to serve as a substitute for a sick model at a photo shoot, launching a career as a print model. While still a college student and not yet out of teens, she landed a gig as a weather girl at Manhattan's Univision affiliate (WXTV Channel 41). Switching to rival Telemundo, she graduated to news reader. Hired in 1988 as the host of "MYV Internacional," a one-hour Spanish-language music show aired in Latin America and the USA, Fuentes moved to MTV, where she achieved name recognition as one of that network's more popular hosts and soon was courted by companies to be a spokesmodel. Signing with Revlon, Fuentes began a lucrative career in commercials (with spin-offs like calendars). She established credentials as a creditable interviewer as host of an eponymous talk show on cable's CNBC from 1994 to 1995 before being tapped to serve as co-host of TV beauty pageants. When ABC decided to revamp its long-running clip show, "America's Funniest Home Videos" in 1997, the network paired the beauty with New York comic John Fugelsang. (The duo had established an onscreen chemistry when they contributed to the network's "Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve '98"). In addition, Fuentes has undertaken occasional acting assignments ranging from 1996's black comedy "Curdled" to playing herself on "Clueless" and "The Larry Sanders Show."