Mariana Levy was born in Mexico City. By the time she turned sixteen in 1982, she participated in her first Televisa soap opera, Vivir Enamorada (“Living in Love”), where she played “Verónica”. Levy took 1983 off, then returned to the small screen in 1984, in a major Televisa hit, Los Años Felices (“The Happy Years”). In Los Años Felices, she played the role of “Nancy”. Her next telenovela, Martín Garatuza (1986) was not successful. The opposite can be said of her next work, as “Linda”, in 1987’s Rosa Salvaje (“Wild Rosa”). Rosa Salvaje, about a girl named Rosa who falls in love with a millionaire but was not accepted by his family, became a hit all over Latin America, Europe and Asia. Levy became known in places including Spain, Puerto Rico, Russia, Venezuela and Argentina. She participated in 1988’s Lo Blanco y Lo Negro (“What’s White and What’s Black”), alongside Rafael Sánchez Navarro among others, as “Alma de Castro”. She took off the rest of the 1980s, but, in 1990, she returned to television with the task of playing three characters in the same soap opera; playing “Ángela”, “Gimena” and “Estrella” in Yo compro esa mujer (“I’ll buy that woman”).

By the time she participated in En Carne Propia (“Inside your own skin”), also in 1990, Mariana Levy had already met the famous actor and dance teacher, Ariel López Padilla. It had been long rumored among fans that López Padilla was homosexual, but he had been romantically involved with Levy. In 1994, Levy and Lopez Padilla worked together again in the telenovela Caminos Cruzados, where both of them played the lead. It was during this production that they finally got together for good. On June 28 of 1996, the pair married in front of millions of TV viewers, as they said their vows in the popular talk show “Cristina”, conducted by the famous talk-show host Cristina Saralegui. The couple had one daughter, María but their marriage ended up in a bitter divorce. While Levy was given custody of her daughter, her story about López Padilla being gay soon became moot because he was accused by a female dance student of him raping her. He was found not guilty.

Before taking off three years for her marriage, she participated in another major Mexican soap opera hit, 1991’s La Pícara Soñadora (“The Flirtatious Dreamer”) as “Lupita”. In 1994, she made her only film when she acted in Amorosos Fantasmas, which was named “Phantoms in Love” for its English-language VCR release. During the rest of her acting career, she acted in nine telenovelas, most of them which were not notable, except for 1997’s Leonela. She married again, this time to José María Fernández, the half brother of Chantal Andere. In 2003, Mariana Levy joined her mother, Talina Fernández, as cohost of her televised variety show, Nuestra Casa (“Our House”), and also participated in her final telenovela, the hugely successful Amor Real. This production was set in the mid 19th century, and in one of her most memorable characters ever, Mariana played “Josefina”, an ugly-duckling-turned-swan character. Levy retired to give birth to Paula and José Emilio.

Mexico City police, based on witness testimonies, have given many different theories about Levy’s death. It is known that she suffered a heart attack while stopped at a red light in the Mexico City neighborhood of Lomas de Chapultepec. However, the question so far is exactly what caused her death: Some witnesses said that she had her heart attack while a gunman was pointing a revolver at her to steal her car; others simply said that she became scared, due to the recent incidents in which many Mexican entertainers or their families have been kidnapped for money, when she saw a large man approaching her car. According to the later version, she ordered her husband to close the car’s windows, but began to have the heart attack when she felt chest pains and shortness of breath soon after. Her husband was actually driving across town to a theme park (Six Flags México), where she and her family were to meet with some friends for a family day. The paramedics tried to resuscitate Mariana Levy in vain on the heart attack’s scene. She was taken by ambulance to a hospital, where she was declared dead at 13:30 local time (UTC –5) on April 29, 2005, one week after her 39th birthday. The police arrested several individuals who happened to be under investigation in connection with some car theft crimes and who happened to be on the scene of Levy’s death. Her mother, Talina Fernández, was in a studio about to tape a show when she received the news of her daughter’s death.