Mariasela Álvarez Lebrón (born January 31, 1960 in

Santo Domingo Santo Domingo, formerly known as Santo Domingo de Guzmán, is the capital and largest city of the Dominican Republic and the List of metropolitan areas in the Caribbean, largest metropolitan area in the Caribbean by population. the Distrito Na ...

) is a Dominican architect, TV host and beauty queen who was crowned

Miss World 1982 Miss World 1982 was the 32nd edition of the Miss World pageant, held on 18 November 1982 at the Royal Albert Hall in London, the United Kingdom. The winner was Mariasela Álvarez from the Dominican Republic. She was crowned by Miss World 1981, ...

. She became the first Dominican woman to win an international beauty title. Álvarez achieved much popularity in her native country, due to her long career on television, which included a successful eight-year run with her award-winning show ''Esta Noche Mariasela''. She is also an accomplished architect who has designed important buildings in the Dominican Republic.

Career

The native of

, the Dominican capital, was crowned the 32nd Miss World, on November 18, 1982, at the

Royal Albert Hall The Royal Albert Hall is a concert hall on the northern edge of South Kensington, London, England. It has a seating capacity of 5,272. Since the hall's opening by Queen Victoria in 1871, the world's leading artists from many performance genres ...

, London. At the end of her term as Miss World, she returned to her country and finished her studies of architecture at the Universidad Autonoma de Santo Domingo (UASD). Álvarez has designed many buildings in her home country, including one of Santo Domingo's landmarks, the ''Torre Cristal'', where the telephone company

Codetel Compañía Dominicana de Teléfonos, doing business as, Claro (formerly CODETEL), is the largest telecommunications company in the Dominican Republic and provides local, long-distance, and wireless voice services, as well as Internet and IPTV serv ...

has one of its commercial branches. In 1991, she engaged in the television business and hosted her weekly talk show ''Con los Ojos Abiertos'' (lit. "With Open Eyes"), which she co-hosted at the beginning with Milagros Germán Olalla, Miss Dominican Republic 1980. In 1996 she opened her own television production company, Maralva, S. A., which produced four miniseries for eight years in ''Esta Noche Mariasela'' (Tonight Mariasela), a variety weekly show of two hours, winner of the

Casandra Award The Soberano Awards (formerly Casandra Awards) are the Dominican music awards, which are awarded annually by the Asociación de Cronistas de Arte of the Dominican Republic in Santo Domingo. Often referenced in music line-ups to delineate a music ...

four times for the Best Special Television Show. In 2004 Álvarez relocated to Madrid with her Spanish husband, well-known hotelier Alberto del Pino, and since 2005 she has been producing the shows ''Esta Noche Mariasela'' (lit. "Mariasela Tonight") and ''Esta Tarde Mariasela'' (lit. "Mariasela This Afternoon") for Popular TV, an

UHF Ultra high frequency (UHF) is the ITU designation for radio frequencies in the range between 300 megahertz (MHz) and 3 gigahertz (GHz), also known as the decimetre band as the wavelengths range from one meter to one tenth of a meter ...

channel property of

COPE A cope ( ("rain coat") or ("cape")) is a liturgical long mantle or cloak, open at the front and fastened at the breast with a band or clasp. It may be of any liturgical colour. A cope may be worn by any rank of the Catholic or Anglican clerg ...

, the second largest radio broadcast station in Spain.

Family

Until late 2011, Álvarez was married to Sergio Alberto Fernández-del Pino Fernández for 27 years. They had four children: Andrés Alberto Fernández del Pino Álvarez, Chantal Fernández del Pino Álvarez, Rebeca Fernández del Pino Álvarez, Emmanuel Fernández del Pino Álvarez. She is the niece of

Mariano Lebrón Saviñón Mariano Lebrón Saviñón (3 August 1922, in Santo Domingo – 18 October 2014) was a Dominican author of the 20th century. One of the founders of the second private university in the Dominican Republic, he named it the Universidad Nacional Pedro ...

Community work

Álvarez founded Hogar Mariololy in 1993, through the Ena Lebrón de Álvarez Foundation, created in honor of her mother. She also founded the Casa Rosada of Santo Domingo, a home run by the Congregation of Las Hijas de la Caridad, for orphans and HIV children.La Casa Rosada
/ref>

References

External links

(in Spanish)
Newspaper Hoy
(in Spanish) {{DEFAULTSORT:Alvarez, Mariasela 1960 births Living people People from Santo Domingo Miss Dominican Republic Dominican Republic beauty pageant winners Miss World winners Miss World 1982 delegates Dominican Republic television producers Dominican Republic architects Dominican Republic emigrants to Spain Dominican Republic people of Spanish descent Women television producers Dominican Republic women architects