Ana Alicia Ortiz Torres was born on December 12, 1956, in Mexico City, Mexico, to Alicia Torres Ortiz and Carlos Celestino Ortiz, hotel agents in Acapulco, Guerrero, Mexico. She was the third of four children. Her father passed away when she was six years old, and she, her mother, and siblings moved to El Paso, Texas, to live with their grandmother and Uncle Louie.
Ana Alicia received a full scholarship to attend Wellesley College in Massachusetts, where she auditioned for and won the lead role in Jules Feiffer's "Crawling Arnold." She left Wellesley and finished her education at the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP),performing in main stage productions and acquiring her actor's equity card.
After graduation, Ana Alicia moved to Los Angeles and struggled to find success as an actress while studying for her law-school entrance exam. She landed the role of Alicia Nieves on ABC's Ryan's Hope in 1975, which provided her with much-needed exposure. She left the show after 15 months to become one of the last Universal Studios contract players.
Ana Alicia attended Southwestern University Law School at night while working as a contract player, but she eventually had to choose between her acting career and law school. She decided to focus on acting and dropped out of law school. She landed several roles on major television films and series episodes before the Universal terminated their contract player department.
Her teacher Milton Katselis suggested she explore more mature roles, which led her to audition for Falcon Crest in 1981. She won the role of Melissa Agretti and played the character for seven years, opposite Jane Wyman and a plethora of handsome men.
After leaving Falcon Crest, Ana Alicia appeared in several TV movies and feature films, including Miracle Landing, Rio Shannon, and Romero. She also devoted time to various animal and human causes, serving as the national spokesperson for the Humane Society and presenting awards promoting Hispanic achievements in the media.
In 1991, Ana Alicia met her now-ex-husband Gary Benz while hosting an episode of The World's Greatest Stunts in France. In 1996, she decided to leave her acting career to focus on being a mother to her two young children, Cathryn and Michael.
In 2015, with her younger child in college, Ana Alicia returned to her acting career as a producer, opening her own production company, Quebrada Entertainment. The company aims to develop scripted and unscripted film and television that reaches a culturally and demographically diverse audience across all genres.
