Maria Elana Bello was born April 18, 1967 in Norristown ,PA. One of 4 children, she has 2 brothers and a sister. Her father was employed in construction and her mother, a teacher who was a former school nurse. Her heritage is Polish/ Italian. She attended Villanova University in Philadelphia: majoring in Political Science. In her senior year she took an acting class as an elective and fell in love with acting. She then moved to New York City with $300.00 in her pocket & spend about six years doing the struggling-actress thing, appearing in numerous stage productions, shooting a few commercials, including her golden moment as the Amstel Light girl, and co-founding Harlem's Dream Yard Drama Project, a nonprofit arts and education program for urban kids. She made her TV debut in a guest appearance on the Fox comedy %22Misery Loves Company%22 and demonstrated her versatility with a strong romantic turn opposite Bruce Greenwood in an episode of %22Nowhere Man%22 (UPN). Bello made her TV-movie debut in %22The Commish: In the Shadow of the Gallows%22 (ABC, 1995) before landing a choice role as a spy opposite Scott Bakula on the short-lived 1996 CBS action series %22Mr. & Mrs. Smith%22. She checked into County General Hospital for three %22ER%22 episodes as sassy pediatrician Anna Del Amico, a character which became a regular on the popular series for one season (1997-98). Bello made a strong sexy impression as a recovering junkie to whom screenwriter Jerry Stahl (Ben Stiller) recounts his past in in %22Permanent Midnight%22 (1998).
With each successive role, Bello found a new dimension to her characters, which were typically hard-as-nails on the outside but warm and vulnerable on the inside. In 1999 she starred as a hooker with ties to Mel Gibson in %22Payback%22 and in 2000 she made a strong impression as the sultry leather-clad owner of the bar %22Coyote Ugly%22 and den-mother to its collection of midriff-baring bartenders. She also appeared as another vulnerable sexpot in director Bruce Paltrow's %22Duets%22 (2000) and switched gears for the nature-oriented IMAX film %22China: The Panda Adenture,%22 in which she plays a widow following in her husband's footsteps as she studies the Chinese Panda in the 1930s (2001). Bello resurfaced again in 2002 in Paul Schrader's gritty %22Auto Focus,%22 playing the TV actress wife of 1960s %22Hogan's Heroes%22 star Bob Crane (Greg Kinnear), who led a kinky secret sex life that led to his murder.
Maria co- founded the Dream Yard Project For Kids, a non-profit arts and education program for children in Harlem. She has travelled to Africa where she spoke to children and gathered material for a book examining the values of children from different cultures.
