Where are they now: AVA LAZAR

Ava Lazar was born in Düsseldorf, but she grew up in the United States. In 1984, the Dobsons chose her to play one of the main characters of SB: Santana Andrade. Initially, Santana was at the center of one of the main SB intrigue: the exhausting search of her son Brandon, given up for adoption years earlier. In my opinion the problem of Santana was that the character was totally involved in the search for Brandon. In any case, after only four months after the start of the show, Santana left the city (December 5, 1984), and when she returned (April 26, 1985), Margaret Michaels played her. In 1987 she revealed that she left the role because “the pressure was too strong. The schedules were too constraining and my role too caricatural. To work for Santa Barbara, it is like condemning oneself not to do anything else. One day, it is necessary to have the courage to say to yourself : that is enough !”. A curiosity: Santana was originally blonde. Then maybe the producers thought that a Mexican character should have black hairs and because the SB cast teemed with blonde actresses, after a handful of episodes Santana became inexplicably brunette. How you prefer her: blonde or brunette?

After SB, she also played as guest star in several series of the 80s: two episodes of Riptide in 1985 and 1986. She also appears on The A-Team (1985) and The Fall Guy in 1986. It opens the series Beauty and the Beast in 1987, with a call-girl character disfigured. Her acting career continued until 2000 with Mic and the Claw, an independent film on a hard rock musician, inspired to Alice Cooper.

Since then Ava Lazar added Interior Design to her repertoire when she embarked on a career as Director of Sales and Marketing for Kay Lang and Associates, a high-end hospitality Design firm in 2005. Later Ava joined one of LA’s top staging and design firms working in sales with Meridith Baer and Associates before joining Interior Illusions to become Staging Management Director. I could conclude by saying that Santana inspired Ava…at least professionally. And now I address my usual call to Ava Lazar: I would be honored to interview you about your experience on SB, but I do not know where to find you. If you happen to read this article by mistake, I would be delighted if you appear to me as the Virgin Mary or Santa Barbara.