My, My, MAYRA: Mayra Veronica

MAYRA VERONICA HAS A TINY VOICE AND A BANGIN' BODY. After that, it's every man for himself. Thank God - and Mayra - for it. Not only is her smile huge and her talents wide-ranging, Veronica - the Cuban-born, Miami-raised actress, singer, model, dancer and top-selling calendar girl - has a big … brain.

Sure, she's a punch-down, knock-out bombshell in the spirit of her hero, Marilyn Monroe, with more swimsuit cred than the cast of Baywatch. But Veronica's real credits come through her schooling - she has spent as much of her life cultivating her education (a degree in psychology and a minor in journalism from Florida International University, as well as method acting studies at the Lee Strasberg Institute in New York) as she has her other formidable talent in ballet and singing.

OK. Maybe the singing came naturally. Her dad was rocker Arturo Aruca of Los Dada, a well-loved Cuban-based band that often had a younger Mayra hanging at rehearsals and performances. But the way Veronica tells it, she left the rocking to pop - for a while - concentrating instead on a career hosting entertainment news shows for Media One in Miami. Shows like Hollywood Previews, where she interviewed guys like Donald Trump, Hugh Hefner, Burt Reynolds, Marc Anthony and Sammy Sosa. That gig not only led to doing national commercials for Coca Cola, Colgate, Burger King and - most recently - Nike, with LeBron James; she became an actress and spokesmodel for the king of all Latin media, Univision, and its host, Don Francisco.

And though she's soon to be hooked up in films like Tumbe, and an endless list of stage shows, it is music - dance, pop, rock, traditional - that has reared it's beautiful head as the voluptuous Veronica has signed to Universal Records for not one, but two albums, due out this Spring. Ai yi.

I found her bouncing between Gold's Gym and her Los Angeles apartment, where she hangs with her black Labradors and sundry other dogs when not in Miami or Manhattan.

In looking through your photos, I noticed that while doing the whole seductive look and pose, you actually manage to look happy - which is so unlike anyone else I've seen. Am I nuts?

MAYRA VERONICA: No! And I'm so glad you asked about that. See, I tend to love the old style of Hollywood photography; the pin-up stuff, the cheesecake stuff. Everybody used to smile then. But somewhere along the line, we lost that. So every time I'd have a photo session I'd have different photographers tell me to get serious.

Totally austere stuff - like you were posing at a funeral.

MV: Yeah. So there's a sense of happiness lost. I've been trying to bring the smile back. I love to smile. It adds a certain touch of who I am - a happy person - to the pictures. I'm actually writing a book about bringing back what's missing most - happiness, femininity - from a woman's struggle to be equal.

Yours is an older style of beauty, too. You're not conventionally model-like; you're not 6 feet tall. You're certainly more developed than flat-chested.

MV: I'm not modern, I know. That, too, is in league with those old shots from the 1940s and '50s.

With all the studying you've done in Method acting and such, is there a sort of winking irony to that level of posing? A comment on the currency of the industry?

MV: Yeah, it was. I don't like being told how to look. I got a little tired of the whole "don't smile" aspect of the business. It wasn't me. I wasn't allowed to be feminine and happy. It's like that Coca Cola commercial. I did one for them, and they kept trying to get me to look all serious. So yes - that's my level of rebellion: putting the smile back.

Have you always been a rebel?

MV: Yes. And I have been since I guess leaving my parents' house younger than I was supposed to. Like 17 years old. I had a very Catholic upbringing. My dad was a strict disciplinarian. We didn't see eye to eye, so one day I just up and left his house with just a bag and my car. Basically, I just lived in my car awhile. I couldn't take not being able to express who I truly was while I was at home. So I left my home.

Yikes. This is after you moved from Cuba, when you were 6 years old, to Florida, right? And your dad is this totally iconic Cuban rocker whose work I know.

MV: Yeah. Cuba was beautiful but the politics … anyway, my father sent us to America and joined us within six months. My dad - totally late-'60s/early-'70s rocker; a real revolutionary. One of the first pop rock acts loved even more than the traditional Cuban singers most people know.

You're only now starting to do music. At first, what were you up to: the whole classical dancing/modeling jawn?

MV: Anything I could do within the arts. I wanted a way to do it - sing - but not wanting to do what he did. Nor asking him if I could, because that was his thing. You didn't want to deal with the ego. And there's the whole "You're a girl" ordeal. But it was always there: the music. He'd be rehearsing in the house, or I'd go with him to all his performances. Imagine you're in a room and the thing that's most constant is that beat. You're raised with it. So, I went a different route and took ballet. But, since we didn't really have the money for lessons, I worked out a deal with the school to get free lessons.

You're smart, beautiful and really crafty. You've only very recently reached back to doing music. Why?

MAYRA VERONICA: I never thought… I don't know. He's very strong my dad. Music was his thing. So maybe I had a certain amount of fear, you know. But fate works in mysterious way - like God works. All the doors for me to do music have always been open. But they really opened wide this year. And it's weird - because so many people work so hard to get these opportunities. All my opportunities …

And I know you've turned so many down

MV: It's true.

Like media reporting those entertainment shows in Miami - the whole celebrity vibe.

MV: My dad always wanted me to do that - be a television reporter or a news anchor, He thought it was dignified, the sort of work one should aspire to. So I did and I interviewed guys like Donald Trump and Hugh Hefner.

Any of them act the jerk to you? Hit on you?

MV: No. They were nice. I believe the energy you put out is the energy you get back.

No smart assess?

MV: I got lucky, I guess (laughs).

So what happened to that gig - you get bored?

MAYRA VERONICA: It was great fate. The network got sold to AT&T, and AT&T closed the network. So I immediately got an opportunity to model for Univision. I did commercials and a few shows with them. Suddenly, it all took off - more commercials, calendars.

Most people don't realize how crucial Univision and its head, Don Francisco, are to America. He's like Don King, Mark Burnett and Dick Clark rolled into one. And a personality as big as all three.

MV: With a little David Letterman thrown in. It's true. Univision, by far, is the largest Hispanic television network in the world. And he's the largest personality within it - he made that station with his Saturday night show. And everybody who has ever worked with him and for him has gone on to do bigger, better things.

He's like the Godfather in the Spanish community. Anybody in the biz ever make your life hard?

MV: To truly appreciate the good, it should never be an easy ride. Even when the roads seem smooth, there's been some resistance. I was naïve enough to believe that just because I'm sexy, no one would think I'm stupid (laughs). Or that I'm an airhead. But the higher up you go, the harder it is for them to see beyond …

... the hills?

MV: What's in front of their nose. But I've always been about the shock factor - have always liked proving people wrong.

You've studied classical dance, voice, Method acting, majored in philosophy. Ever think maybe you're too beautiful for your diverse talents?

MV: Know what's funny? I was the ugly duckling growing up. My mom was absolutely beautiful. So was my older sister. Both have blonde hair and blue eyes. So I didn't feel pretty enough. Maybe that was my drive to get smarter. Now that I hear the other side, it's comical to hear that perception.

So when did that lousy perception change?

MV: And soon as I developed, when my breasts got bigger and my butt got bigger. I had to leave ballet. Then I started noticing how the boys in school started reacting differently - all of a sudden they were saying, "wow." It all happened during one summer, and the guy that I had a crush on all of a sudden had a crush on me.

What are you doing to keep in fighting shape?

MV: First, I do the all-too-popular low-carb, high protein diet. But I also train at the Mecca of Bodybuilding - Gold's Gym Venice - five times a week for about an hour and a half. Guess I'm trying to look like some of the fitness competitors. (laughs) Yoga also helps. I think its one of the things that keeps me in better shape.

You're doing both a Spanish-language record and an English-language record - very Shakira.

MV: Both at the same time! It gets a little complicated (laughs). The Spanish one is just getting done faster. But there's an English-language song in there - "You're Not" - just to give people a taste. It's just a representation of my life: Cuban-born, Miami-raised. The English one is definitely a pop-hip hop fusion with some Latin flavor. But the Spanish record? Pure meringue, salsa, cha-cha-cha. Estoy Viniendo Con Todo: "I'm Coming With Everything." That's the title.

Life in the city stuff. Any models of the sort of career - works done, goals had - you'd like to have?

MV: It's definitely a mix of Madonna and Marilyn Monroe (laughs), only without the tragedy part. She's indicative of that old pin-up style I love.

Do you ever wonder if the calendars you've done and they sexy poses you've struck, are exploitative? Or unworthy of you?

MAYRA VERONICA:The only thing that's bothered me is that no one really cared what I had to say. That is: until the body opened the doors for me. Now people listen up.