Speaker 1: Dalia has got it all.
Speaker 2: Decades of hits and eras that have touched multiple generations,
Speaker 2: fashion lines, iconic music videos, and a meme worthy telenovela.
Speaker 3: Scenes, and her story touches on so much of what
Speaker 3: we've talked about this season. You've got child stardom, media industry,
Speaker 3: power brokers, salacious rumors, behind the scenes, drama, and unstoppable talent.
Speaker 1: Her story is telenovela worthy.
Speaker 2: There's fights, scandalous romance, a ransom, and a fairy tale wedding.
Speaker 3: It's also a perfect study in playing the fame game,
Speaker 3: building an audience and staying connected with it no matter what.
Speaker 2: But D'alia's story would be nothing if not for Dalia herself. Confident, impulsive,
Speaker 2: unapologetically herself, and forever in touch with her inner child.
Speaker 3: Her story might share much in common with other icons
Speaker 3: from this season, but Talia herself, well, there is no
Speaker 3: one else like her, and that was clear from day one.
Speaker 3: I'm your host Liliana Oosquez.
Speaker 1: And I'm Joseph Carrio and This is Becoming an Icon.
Speaker 3: A weekly podcast where we give you the rundown on
Speaker 3: how today's most famous LATINV stars have shaped pop culture.
Speaker 1: And given the world some extra level.
Speaker 4: Sit back and get comfortable.
Speaker 1: Because we are going in.
Speaker 3: The only way we know how, with whenas, unassas and
Speaker 3: a lot of opinions, as we relive their greatest achievements
Speaker 3: on our journey to find out what makes them so iconic.
Speaker 3: Our story begins into that de Mexico, where on August
Speaker 3: twenty sixth, nineteen seventy two, Ernesto sod Payas and Yolanda
Speaker 3: Miranda Mankee welcome their fourth daughter into the world.
Speaker 2: Little Ariadna Talia Sodi Miranda will show herself to be
Speaker 2: hard working, mindful, keeps her pencils in a row, virgo
Speaker 2: big straight, a student, vibes at her best. She's down
Speaker 2: to earth, but perfectionism and high expectations can lead to
Speaker 2: disappointment with the people around her.
Speaker 3: If you already know what goes down with Timrice, you
Speaker 3: might be nod in your head.
Speaker 1: Here.
Speaker 2: She's going to take care of herself, but she might
Speaker 2: miss the big picture. Luckily, the moon in Areas will
Speaker 2: keep her in check with a self starting, adventurous energy aka.
Speaker 2: She won't be stuck in her head, but trust her instincts.
Speaker 3: Unlike many of our icons from this season and some
Speaker 3: from last. Dalia was born into a pretty well off family.
Speaker 2: Daddy was getting that coin. Ernesto was a scientist, medical pathologist,
Speaker 2: criminologist and right.
Speaker 3: I guess having four jobs was maybe a good thing
Speaker 3: back in the seventies. In any case, Thalia's mother, Yolanda,
Speaker 3: was a dedicated homemaker for eleven years. Yolanda was busy
Speaker 3: with three daughters, and then along came Talia.
Speaker 1: Dalia was an accident.
Speaker 2: Yolanda says by the time her youngest daughter was born,
Speaker 2: she and Ernesto felt like they could have been her grandparents.
Speaker 4: Now that's some brutal honesty.
Speaker 3: Aware from what we can tell, this didn't make for
Speaker 3: an unhappy childhood though. Falia grew up in Santa Maria
Speaker 3: La Ribera, a colorful and famous neighborhood in Mexico City.
Speaker 2: And she had that kind of childhood people only dream
Speaker 2: about now. She roamed free and explored the streets on
Speaker 2: her bike.
Speaker 3: Falia has fond memories of eating vanilla raisin balletas and
Speaker 3: having picnics at the Kiosko Morisco, a big, colorful pavilion
Speaker 3: that looks like it was time warped out of medieval Spain, but.
Speaker 2: Before our girl could even walk. She was on TV.
Speaker 2: She was just a year old when she appeared in
Speaker 2: a soda commercial. Some girls are just born to be
Speaker 2: on screen.
Speaker 4: Fun fact.
Speaker 3: She also grew up in one of the neighborhood's most
Speaker 3: famous buildings, the House of Dogs, a building guarded by
Speaker 3: twenty seven dog statues.
Speaker 2: God, my neighborhood growing up had a house like that,
Speaker 2: But the dots are real now.
Speaker 3: Once Talia was able to get around, she became a
Speaker 3: bit of a tomboy. She played baseball and made mischief
Speaker 3: with a slink shot it's giving.
Speaker 2: It now, and then the backwards baseball cap pink bubblegum.
Speaker 4: Look, but our girl contained multitudes.
Speaker 3: At just four, she took ballet and piano at the
Speaker 3: National Conservatory of Music.
Speaker 2: Wait wait, wait, wait, wait wait, this sounds too good
Speaker 2: to be true.
Speaker 3: Are you about to hit me with a devastating tragedy
Speaker 3: that up ended little Talia's sense of normalcy?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I knew it. Thank God, this is the
Speaker 2: last one, Joseph. Sorry, Demi Lovado, I gotta give my
Speaker 2: heart a break. Oh wait, should we do Demian season three?
Speaker 1: Wait?
Speaker 4: Do we need to get approval for that? Anyway? Back
Speaker 4: to Taaliam.
Speaker 3: When the future Raina that Bop was just six years old,
Speaker 3: her father fell ill. He would stay at the hospital
Speaker 3: days at a time.
Speaker 2: Yolanda and her four daughters visited him constantly, but each
Speaker 2: hospital stay he got sicker and sicker.
Speaker 4: One day, Yolanda said to Talia, give your dad a
Speaker 4: kiss so he gets better.
Speaker 3: So she did, and as they were leaving the room,
Speaker 3: Bealia suddenly heard beeping from the machines that were hooked
Speaker 3: up to her father. Medical staff rushed past them and
Speaker 3: into the room. Ernesto was gone.
Speaker 2: And poor Talia was immediately convinced that her kiss had
Speaker 2: sealed her father's fate. After that, Delia didn't speak for days, weeks, months.
Speaker 3: Balia still went to her lessons at the National Conservatory,
Speaker 3: still played baseball, still explored the streets, but she didn't
Speaker 3: utter a single word.
Speaker 2: Yolanda took Dalia to a psychologist, believing something had broken
Speaker 2: in her daughter.
Speaker 3: The doctor told her it was a trauma response, but
Speaker 3: that otherwise Dalia was fine. Unsatisfied, Yolanda did what a
Speaker 3: lot of mothers would probably do, myself included, and took
Speaker 3: her to see several other psychologists for additional opinions, but.
Speaker 1: They each told her the same thing.
Speaker 2: And so Yolanda had spent a full year wondering if
Speaker 2: she'd ever hear her daughter's voice again. And so one day,
Speaker 2: Yolanda and Dhalia were sitting at dinner, and Dahlia turned
Speaker 2: to her mother and asked, Mom, where's Dad.
Speaker 3: I've got to imagine that time literally stopped for Yolanda.
Speaker 3: That's a gun to your head moment as a parent,
Speaker 3: like if I say the wrong thing, what will that
Speaker 3: do to my child?
Speaker 1: Like?
Speaker 4: Will she not speak for another year?
Speaker 2: Real Yolanda was shook, but she took her breath and said, well,
Speaker 2: your dad's in heaven with God, so he's not coming back.
Speaker 1: You won't see him again.
Speaker 3: D simply said, oh, okay. She kept on eating and
Speaker 3: that was it. She went about her life and started
Speaker 3: talking again.
Speaker 1: Look, I get it. Vocalist is totally valid.
Speaker 3: Tama respond better known as selective mudism, incidences of which
Speaker 3: are super rare. After her year of grief, Falia grew
Speaker 3: up healthy, happy, and inspired.
Speaker 2: Dlia's first rush of inspiration came from watching the nineteen
Speaker 2: seventy six Olympics, where Nadiya Kominici became the first gymnast
Speaker 2: to earn a perfect ten.
Speaker 3: But she also had a role model closer to home,
Speaker 3: her older sister, Laudasabata, a working theater and film actress.
Speaker 2: Delia stayed on her best virgal behavior so that her
Speaker 2: mom would let her come see her big sister on
Speaker 2: stage and on screen, and watching her big sister shine
Speaker 2: showed her that her own dreams could be made real.
Speaker 3: Finally, in nineteen eighty two, Balia Yolanda took a mother
Speaker 3: daughter girls.
Speaker 4: Trip to New York City.
Speaker 1: Their first stop Baby, they.
Speaker 3: Took in show after show during a Broadway season that
Speaker 3: included Cats and a musical adaptation of Alice in Wonderland. Balia,
Speaker 3: at ten years old, was dazzled by the shows.
Speaker 2: Then came a trip to Saint Patrick's Cathedral, and like
Speaker 2: everyone who visited Saint Patrick's Cathedral, like me, Dalia took
Speaker 2: one look at the place and thought, I'm getting married here.
Speaker 3: And we will check back in on that wish later,
Speaker 3: but for now, Dalia was heading back to Mexico City
Speaker 3: with a head full of dreams and a belly full
Speaker 3: of fire Ballia's story connects a few dots across the
Speaker 3: icons we've covered this season. One of the biggest dots
Speaker 3: being te La Visa.
Speaker 2: Are we about to pull a curtain and reveal the
Speaker 2: mastermind behind the entire Latin pop industry.
Speaker 4: It's it's not that serious.
Speaker 3: Although actually Televisa definitely has the makings.
Speaker 4: Of Mexican succession in a way.
Speaker 3: It was and remains Mexico's single largest mass media company,
Speaker 3: and ownership of tele Visa has been passed between three
Speaker 3: generations of one family, the Escatagas.
Speaker 5: Damn, where do I watch that telenovela? Honestly, tele Visa.
Speaker 5: If you owned a television set in Mexico in the eighties,
Speaker 5: you were watching Televisa, and the actors on that telenovela
Speaker 5: would have been trained by Televisa's own drama school, El
Speaker 5: Centro de Educispeka.
Speaker 1: So let me get this straight.
Speaker 2: It's like, instead of going to theater school and then
Speaker 2: swepping out to Hollywood t audition for a network show,
Speaker 2: the network itself ran a drama school.
Speaker 3: Home Grown Baby, and in the eighties Bella Visa's drama
Speaker 3: school founded a children's division and began airing Jugemo Sacanta,
Speaker 3: a yearly singing and dancing competition show for kids.
Speaker 1: Mmm.
Speaker 2: So this is where Dalio's story starts to sound a
Speaker 2: little bit like Christina's in.
Speaker 4: More ways than one.
Speaker 3: So in nineteen eighty three, an eleven year old Talia
Speaker 3: makes her second appearance on national TV.
Speaker 2: A decade after showing up in a soda commercial as
Speaker 2: a baby.
Speaker 3: This time she's singing and dancing in a purple satin jumper.
Speaker 3: The song Mina moderna de rock modern rocker Girl is
Speaker 3: about being a little different from other girls.
Speaker 1: Oh does she sing about going quiet for a full year?
Speaker 3: No, she is not the original Billie Eilish. That doesn't happen.
Speaker 3: Baala's debut performance earns her second place, meaning she just
Speaker 3: missed out on the grand Prize, a professional recording session
Speaker 3: with major record label Moussart Records, and three appearances on
Speaker 3: ci Mfreno Mingo shows.
Speaker 4: Do you remember the show? It's the Mexican Dick Van
Speaker 4: Dyke Show, Mexican Dick Clark.
Speaker 1: That's what I said.
Speaker 4: Are you being cute?
Speaker 1: Aren't I? Always?
Speaker 4: Yes? You are, in fact always so cute.
Speaker 3: But sire and the Mingle, if you guys remember, is
Speaker 3: the same show where Los Digres performed after the runaway
Speaker 3: success of Contrabandocidalia would go on to make a number
Speaker 3: of appearances on that show.
Speaker 1: Bye Dick Van Dyke and Talia would have to wait,
Speaker 1: I Hate You.
Speaker 3: Disappointed, but not discouraged, Thalia kept working on her craft
Speaker 3: and kept an eye out for opportunities.
Speaker 2: Sometimes opportunities come knocking, and sometimes you got to bang
Speaker 2: down that door yourself.
Speaker 3: That's actually more my style, which brings us to nineteen
Speaker 3: eighty five. Talia and her mother would take another trip
Speaker 3: to the theater, this time in Mexico City, where Talia's
Speaker 3: favorite children's pop group Bi maric Is performing in an
Speaker 3: adaptation of Greece.
Speaker 2: Dimniccio was like a boy band and girl band group
Speaker 2: were coed like Spice Girls crossed with in Sync, Nediott
Speaker 2: degrees crossed with throughout w when d meets New Genes'.
Speaker 3: They were basically Mexico's response to a Spanish group, Batichies,
Speaker 3: that had captured the hearts and ears of Mexican tweens
Speaker 3: a couple of years earlier. And I should add they
Speaker 3: were another product of the Televisa machine. Yo, can I
Speaker 3: get some stock in Televisa. I'm not doing a good
Speaker 3: job invested like and.
Speaker 2: They did musical theater, and like any kid watching Greece
Speaker 2: for the first time, Daliah wanted to be Sandy.
Speaker 4: And just as Sandy makes her transformation.
Speaker 3: From shy girl too thick and me, Talia's mother leans
Speaker 3: over to her.
Speaker 2: And sets so help me, God, you are going to
Speaker 2: wear that kantast other jacket or my name isn't Yolanda
Speaker 2: Miranda Manche.
Speaker 3: Remember listeners, not all of Joseph's quotes are direct quotes. Anyway,
Speaker 3: Felia laughs it off, but agrees to go backstage with
Speaker 3: her mom to meet the producer.
Speaker 1: Of the show You knock that door down, Yolanda.
Speaker 3: The producer just so happens to recognize Talia from her
Speaker 3: time on Hugemo Sakantar and offers a role in the course.
Speaker 2: She's in the back line, barely visible. Oh God, I
Speaker 2: hope I get it. And then one day, just a
Speaker 2: month later, she.
Speaker 3: Does the female lead ends her run as Sandy, and
Speaker 3: Dalia puts on the leather jacket.
Speaker 2: Her mama was right, Okay, now this, Yulanda, I can
Speaker 2: get behind, not seldomar.
Speaker 3: And it turns out when you bang down that first door,
Speaker 3: door after door will open for you, because months after
Speaker 3: her run, ends in Grease, Dalia gets a dream offer
Speaker 3: to join them Verche itself.
Speaker 2: Dahalia's about to join the big leagues, but not everyone
Speaker 2: is going to be happy about it.
Speaker 3: The year is nineteen eighty six and thin Verce is
Speaker 3: riding a high.
Speaker 2: Dahlia is the undisputed it chrome. Her looks, her stage presence,
Speaker 2: and her moves single handedly saved the band. Without her,
Speaker 2: you're going to go from les dardom to major cringe.
Speaker 3: I also want to talk about the looks from Theme Betica,
Speaker 3: because if I had a mood board to represent this
Speaker 3: time in my life, they're showing up a lot on
Speaker 3: that vision board.
Speaker 1: I think that these looks can be used. Now.
Speaker 4: I feel like my hair looks like that right now.
Speaker 3: Okay, I'm rocking my natural wave pattern and I look
Speaker 3: like I am a defunct, rejected It's not true.
Speaker 4: Former member of Theme Betche. It's so good.
Speaker 3: The often By the way, why did teens in the
Speaker 3: eighties and nineties need to look like they were forty seven?
Speaker 1: It was a thing.
Speaker 2: Why do we want to Carl Lagerfeld, He was very
Speaker 2: that and you know Latinos love their chanel honey.
Speaker 4: Oh wait, it's just.
Speaker 3: All I just can't understand why we all wanted to
Speaker 3: look thirty years older when we were teens.
Speaker 1: The hair, I'm not worth skipping this, okay.
Speaker 3: And besides the herself, no one was happier about this
Speaker 3: than her manager, I mean her mamager, Dina Lohan aka Yolanya.
Speaker 2: After helping her daughter break down a door into an
Speaker 2: industry neither of them knew anything about Mama your last,
Speaker 2: stepped in to make sure her daughter had someone trustworthy
Speaker 2: by her side.
Speaker 3: Yolanda was one of the very first female managers for
Speaker 3: a pop artist in Mexico. To say that the field
Speaker 3: was a man's world is an understatement ow gross. But
Speaker 3: amid the Machismo, Balia and Yolanda were a tight knit,
Speaker 3: dynamic duo.
Speaker 1: But there was one person who did not stand.
Speaker 2: That was a Chica Dorada aka Mia Moore Paulina Rubio.
Speaker 3: Now, for those of you that do not go deep
Speaker 3: in the history with the Miricee, Paulina had been with
Speaker 3: the group from the very beginning.
Speaker 4: Fans knew her as.
Speaker 3: A bit of a princess, a bit spoiled, a little cocky,
Speaker 3: and kind of a brat.
Speaker 2: And here in Brat summer twenty twenty four, we can
Speaker 2: say we are.
Speaker 3: Here for it, and so were many of them Bettica's
Speaker 3: original fans, so much so that the fandom was split.
Speaker 3: Were you them Faulina or team Thalia.
Speaker 2: This is Brittany versus Christina, but with perms, high rise
Speaker 2: jeans and velvet tops.
Speaker 4: Where do you think the wardrobe went archives?
Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure, Elisa call me. And like Brittany and Christina,
Speaker 3: things didn't start off hostel. They shared dressing rooms and
Speaker 3: help each other get ready.
Speaker 2: Talia had three elder sisters, so she knew how to
Speaker 2: hang and they had each other's.
Speaker 3: Back, but fans began to notice each girl shooting dirty
Speaker 3: looks at the other during interviews. Rumors swirled that Ballina
Speaker 3: threw shade on Thalia behind her back and vice versa,
Speaker 3: but nothing could be confirmed until the infamous concert at
Speaker 3: the Luca.
Speaker 2: Tic takes the stage and Balina, taking a page from
Speaker 2: Kristen Bell in Burlesque, peaks behind Dalia's back and unpugs her.
Speaker 3: Microphone so she did not and when Talia notices that
Speaker 3: her mic isn't working, she immediately puts two and two together,
Speaker 3: marches George Baulina and snatches her microphone out of her hands.
Speaker 2: Within seconds, the two girls are literally in a tug
Speaker 2: of war match over the microphone.
Speaker 3: The rest of the band. Okay, sorry, I had to
Speaker 3: go back to my normal serious self. Okay, I'm having
Speaker 3: too much fun with this because the fact that I
Speaker 3: don't see a video of this playing in YouTube right
Speaker 3: now is making me so angry, Like where were the cameras.
Speaker 3: Cameras up, cameras up, I wish. The rest of the
Speaker 3: band freezes, unsure of what to do, and from there
Speaker 3: it escalates quickly. Paulina accidentally hits Falia in the mouth accidentally.
Speaker 3: I mean, all we have is her word, so we
Speaker 3: are taking it. Then of course comes the permed hair pulling.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, not the perms.
Speaker 3: And the crowd is ampt deem. Paulina and Team Talia
Speaker 3: chant the names of their faves like it's a TNA
Speaker 3: wrestling match, and they pre ordered those tickets.
Speaker 2: But the rest of Mexico wouldn't need no pay per
Speaker 2: view to keep up.
Speaker 1: With Ballina versus Dahlia.
Speaker 2: The magazines and TV gossip shows were all over this.
Speaker 3: A week after the infamous show at Do Luca, the
Speaker 3: two girls sat down for an interview with actress Rodonica Castro.
Speaker 4: I mean it's like she made this shit up, right.
Speaker 3: They denied having ever fought or having held any grudges,
Speaker 3: but the concertgoers knew exactly what they saw today.
Speaker 1: That shit would be all over TikTok.
Speaker 3: I mean, it would literally fill up your entire FYP
Speaker 3: and I would be in.
Speaker 4: A deep pull back in there, so deep in there.
Speaker 3: I mean, by the way, life was just easier before smartphones.
Speaker 3: It was, it was nicer, but the chief Mosa and
Speaker 3: me digging cameras up investigative journalists always now. It not
Speaker 3: be long after that that Talia would ultimately walk away
Speaker 3: from Tinice entirely. Her shift away from the band starts
Speaker 3: in nineteen eighty seven, when a producer approaches her for
Speaker 3: something similarly dramatico, a role in a telenovela.
Speaker 2: It's a small guest role in Bobre senor Tali Mantour,
Speaker 2: but Jessic with Grease, Dalia's short appearance would lead to
Speaker 2: something much bigger, a co starring role in the first
Speaker 2: ever teen oriented telenovela, King Seneta.
Speaker 4: Put some respect on the name.
Speaker 3: For those of you that don't know, King Signea was
Speaker 3: a cultural phenomena youth. It's in that Degrassi euphoria skins
Speaker 3: mold of teen drama. We are talking provocative, topical, and
Speaker 3: ultimately so relatable.
Speaker 2: It touched on teen pregnancy, substance abuse, prejudice, and discrimination.
Speaker 3: It was it was juice uh huh, and it spoke
Speaker 3: to a generation that had never experienced a show that
Speaker 3: was this confrontational and reflective of the world they were
Speaker 3: growing up in.
Speaker 2: And the theme song was a bob and sung by
Speaker 2: Timbiriche where Dalia was still a member.
Speaker 3: This teen telenovela was a sensation, and today it is
Speaker 3: actually considered to be one of the greatest and most
Speaker 3: influential Felen novellas ever made.
Speaker 2: Night after Night, Talia was there on screen in the
Speaker 2: role of Vietris, one of a pair of besties excitedly
Speaker 2: planning their keenses.
Speaker 3: But the two realized that womanhood is more complicated than
Speaker 3: just a party.
Speaker 4: Spoiler alert, Viatrins gets pregnant.
Speaker 3: Jim Sigea would sweep the theve Novellas Awards that year,
Speaker 3: and Talia would win an award for Breakout Performance for
Speaker 3: an Actress.
Speaker 2: All of this would have been enough to cement Dalia's
Speaker 2: place in the hearts and minds of millions of Mexicanos
Speaker 2: as a teen icon. But that wasn't enough for our girl.
Speaker 3: And so in nineteen eighty eight, after kin Signena goes
Speaker 3: off the air, Dalia approaches Emilio Ascaraga, the president of Telavisa,
Speaker 3: and tells him.
Speaker 2: Sata s getway, I want to be famous, world famous.
Speaker 4: Not a direct quote. Not a direct quote.
Speaker 3: At that point, Thalia has more than proven her star power.
Speaker 3: She has been the it girl in Mexico. She was
Speaker 3: like an it girl before it girls were on TikTok
Speaker 3: okay got it all right?
Speaker 4: Anyway?
Speaker 3: She was the it girl in Mexico's leading team band
Speaker 3: and the co star of a groundbreaking TV drama, but
Speaker 3: still the spold.
Speaker 2: And yet Dalia stands her ground and says that she
Speaker 2: wants to be like Veronica Castro, the very same actress
Speaker 2: who interviewed her and Ballina Rubo, and.
Speaker 3: Emilio matches Balia's bet and sends her to Ali Wood
Speaker 3: to further study singing, theater and of course English. Dalia
Speaker 3: leaves Binberiche and begins her solo career.
Speaker 1: That's next time on becoming an Icon.
Speaker 3: On the next Becoming an Icon, Balia makes her solo
Speaker 3: debut with the Sanderdine moment of her own.
Speaker 6: Yaoa esperta la more canis mea.
Speaker 3: Becoming an Icon is presented by Sonoo and Iheart's Michael
Speaker 3: Duda podcast Network. Listen to Becoming an Icon on the
Speaker 3: iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcast