 
My, Oh, Myra!
Is there nothing Mayra Veronica can’t conquer? Somehow we’re okay with this Cuban wanting to rule the world.
By Tim Coleman; Photos by Zach Dilgard
I take it, but the handshake morphs into more as she pulls me close to kiss my cheek. A woman of cartoon fantasy proportions that would make R. Crumb jump for joy, Mayra is in town to have her body scanned for a video game. All I can think of is, “I hope she doesn’t fry the CPU.” And something about her expression suggests naughtiness around every corner.
But once the Cuban-born actress-singer sits, another quality surfaces that the alluring photos on her website (mayraveronica.com) fail to capture. Maybe it’s the perfume, the softly accented English, or the rose stitched into the brim of her cap, but in person a gentleness shines through her big, somehow innocent brown eyes. It sure doesn’t hurt that she’s also quite funny.
Feel the Spanish Beat
A tour is scheduled to follow, as is an English-language album, which will include “You’re Not.” Such a set-up comes with the territory for a bilingual artist. Because Mayra was raised in Miami from an early age, she isn’t considered “fully Spanish” by some Latin markets. Yet, since she’s from Cuba, certain whitebread outlets deem her “out of the mainstream.”
What all of this means, Mayra says with a smile, is that she must excel in both arenas. But it can present some strange situations. “The first time I came to New York and got into an agency,” she explains, “they said, ‘Oh, we can put you in our Hispanic division.’ And I was like, ‘Hispanic division? What’s that?’”
While her singing career - in English and en Espańol - is at full-speed, Mayra believes acting is her specialty. She has extensive formal training, including a year at the storied Lee Strasberg Institute, and has made numerous film and television appearances, including playing Chuck Zito’s wife on the HBO prison drama “Oz.” And the Def Jam work required some voiceovers as well as the body scan.
She never even thought she would be involved in music. “Just because it was my dad’s thing,” she says, “and that’s why I got more into the acting side. Even though I think it’s fate. The Spanish beat is very hard to get away from.”
The attentions of men everywhere must also be difficult to avoid. But Mayra says she is not seeing anyone due to the demands of her career. However, she does cop to having a certain type - the proverbial strong, silent one. A guy who exudes mystery, confidence, and - what’s this about enjoying underwater sex?
Mayra raises a hand to block her crimped, blushing grin. “I was young,” she giggles. “It was with my first boyfriend, an artist, and we just tried it, and it was amazing. I don’t know if I would do it a lot, but I would definitely do it again. It’s very intense for a woman.”
Besides reading, dancing, swimming, and of course, swimming, Mayra reveals another pastime.
“I go to Las Vegas a lot, and when I’m playing blackjack, I need a good cigar,” she swoons. “When I’m out there, I try and get my hands on [a Fuente Fuente] OpusX. My regular one when I’m just hanging out would have to be a Montecristo. It’s a little softer, a little better for females. But the OpusX? I don’t know if it’s the power feeling that it gives you because it is so strong, but it’s sexy.”
The subject of stogies also reminds her of childhood. “When I first came to America,” she adds, “my grandfather was doing that whole Cuban thing of playing dominoes and smoking cigars.”
Nothing Comes Easy
As the daughter of a successful musician, she was born into a well-to-do family in Cuba. Her father rehearsed constantly, so five-year-old Mayra often snuck into his jam sessions and distracted her father’s bandmates with her own singing and dancing. “His friends would start clapping, and I’d get all this attention,” she says. “I loved it, so I kept doing it.”
The next year, however, Mayra found herself in Havana’s Jose Marti International Airport with her mother. They stood with others on a monstrous staircase to an old plane without air-conditioning bound for Miami. The Cuban government was allowing select residents to leave, and her mother wanted to resettle the family with relatives in America, fibbing that they would return to Cuba the following day. Only then did Mayra agree to accompany her.
She wanted to cry nonetheless. But her mother squeezed her hand every time she sobbed. Mayra recalls, “I had to hold it in, because if you cry, the government says, ‘Oh, this child wants to stay.’ And then they take you away from your parent and the parent leaves.” Worse yet, her father and other family members were unable to come.
For instance, Mayra has a half-sister whose father worked for the government. As a result, she could not depart Cuba, and their mother had made the anguished choice to take Mayra alone rather than remain all together. While Mayra couldn’t bear to go, her half-sister insisted. As Mayra and her mother took off, hordes of men, women, and children twirled bandannas from the roof of the hangar to bid farewell and hope for a future reunion.
“I remember clearly the flight my grandfather in Miami had sent for us,” she says. “I can still see my sister waving good-bye with her handkerchief and not knowing if I was going to ever see her or my family again. But she had said, ‘Go! Because I want to get out of here, and the only way I’m going to get out of here is if you send for me later on.’ That was really, really sad.”
Alas, the trials didn’t end there. Her half-sister decided she would turn 18 soon enough and flee to America on her own. But then Fidel Castro raised the age of legal adulthood to 21; in that time, she married and had children. Mayra adds, “It took me 13 years to see her again.”
SMOKE - Spring, 2006   |
It’s a thrilling time for Mayra. Besides the video game - Def Jam 3, due next year - she released her first album in April. A blend of merengue, salsa, cumbia, and cha cha cha, Venga Con To contains two English tracks: the translated title cut, “Giving It All I’ve Got,” and the single “You’re Not.”
Mayra paid a high price to make that trip. She reached the States in 1983 - the same year Scarface shot up movie screens - and she almost didn’t make it.