María Elena Enríquez Ruiz (18 August 1944 – 3 February 2024), known as Helena Rojo, was a Mexican actress and model.

Biography

Born in Mexico City, Mexico, she began her career as a model in 1961. Toward the end of the decade, she studied drama with renowned Mexican directors Carlos Ancira and José Luis Ibáñez, making her film debut in 1968 in the film El Club de los suicidas. That same year, Rojo appeared in her second film, Los Amigos. She continued working as a model and appearing in small film roles in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

In 1969, she signed an exclusivity contract with Productora Cinematográfica Marte. Later, she began expanding her acting career into television and theater. In 1974, her first television role was the lead in the telenovela Extraño en su pueblo.

Rojo's cinematic career led her to work with the most important Mexican film directors of the 1970s and 1980s, such as Felipe Cazals, Arturo Ripstein, Rafael Corkidi, Alberto Bojórquez, Marcela Fernández Violante, and Jorge Fons.

Rojo worked with international talents, such as German director Werner Herzog and actor Klaus Kinski, with a role in the film Aguirre, the Wrath of God. She also appeared in the film Foxtrot (1976), directed by Arturo Ripstein, alongside actors Charlotte Rampling, Peter O'Toole, and Max von Sydow.

In 2006, she appeared in the American dramedy series Ugly Betty, playing a mother who tries to steer her son away from the stepmother who has eyes for him in a "faux" telenovela watched on TV by the main character's family.

Rojo died after a battle with cancer on 3 February 2024, at the age of 79.