After this appearance, I began keeping an eye out for Thalía on Spanish television. The discovery of her music videos quickly converted me into a camp follower. A little background: Ms. Sodi (Thalía was born Thalía Ariadna Sodi Miranda on August 26, 1972) (TW Note: Thalia's birth year is more widely believed to be 1971) first achieved fame in a prefab teen band called Timbiriche, a Menudo-like combo that featured both genders. I have not been blown away by the appearances of theirs that I have seen, but they did make a noteworthy guest appearance on a rather startling 1987 Halloween special that has run over and over again on Galavision. Noche de Brujas y Terror (Night of Witches and Terror) is an eye-popping, no-budget Mexican TV reworking of The Rocky Horror Show (which features Spanish versions of "Over at the Frankenstein Place" and "Hot Patootie"). Watching Timbiriche’s brief appearance here, no one could contemplate that in only about 3 years, Thalía would leave the band and, wisely continue -- thanks to her manager mother, Yolanda -- her connection with the Televisa organization, which conveniently owned the Timbiriche concept, a record label, and several radio and TV channels in Latin America and the U.S. The result was the making of a star — and some of the ’90s flashiest, most memorable music videos, never seen (natch) on MTV.

The videos that promoted Thalía’s first three early ’90s solo albums, and a dazzlingly outlandish TV special called "Love," set up Thalía’s musical persona: a "good girl" who became a sex kitten on stage, singing songs with titles like "Sangre," Sudor," and "Saliva" ("Blood," "Sweat," and "Saliva"). Her costumes were outrageous and provocative, and her production numbers brought to mind (for those of us who keep track of excesses from all eras) the best moments of Ann-Margret and Nancy Sinatra — although even Ann and Nancy never came on variety shows decked out as an Aztec goddess, a female boxer, or a geisha girl.

After she became hugely popular, Thalía leapt from the Fonovisa label to EMI Latin, which funded two of her most outrageous, unforgettable videos. The sublimely tongue-in-cheek "Gracias a Dios" finds Thalía singing her thanks to God for giving her a good man — as she proceeds to playfully torture a captive shirtless male in an abandoned warehouse. The beefcake hero is straddled and shaved with a straight razor, drenched with a hose, and suspended upside down as Thalía, wearing a Louise Brooks wig, draws a sweet lil heart on his chest with her lipstick. Fitting neatly into the "most memorable image" category is the sight of our heroine offering this dunce a "last cigarette" — and then lighting it with her candelabra brassiere!

"Gracias" never fails to delight more broad-minded viewers, but it is more than equalled by another of Thalía’s wonderful acts of provocation, "Amor a La Mexicana." As this charming tune about loving "in the Mexican style" proceeds, one is put in mind of actor Ricardo Montalban’s famous statement about the stereotypes that the Mexican people have been saddled with for decades: Montalban has stated he is fed up with "the lazy Mexican, the bandito, and the Latin Lover." In the "Amor" video, Thalía and director Benny Corral revel in these stereotypes right from the opening shot, in which the lovely Ms. Sodi lies in a hammock, waiting for her Latin-lover boyfriend to arrive (the gent is decked out — you guessed it — in familiar bandito/"Cisco Kid" style) After a cockfight, some fireworks, a Frieda Kahlo reference, and the classic train-going-into-a-tunnel shot, the video reaches a sort of crescendo when Thalía is nearly grazed by her boyfriend’s flying machete … but then she and her "macho" settle down to devour a nice juicy watermelon (one can almost hear Corral chuckling as the Freudian symbols fly by). Though none of her videos have topped the two described above, it should be noted that our gal elegantly sports a Salvador Dali-like shower-faucet brassiere in "Piel Morena"; tells us about the strength of women of Hispanic heritage while lookin’ good in green hair (!) in "Mujer Latina"; and is chased through the jungle by cannibal tribesmen in one of her earliest videos, "Un Pacto Entre Los Dos."

Thalía’s more recent videos haven’t been as adventurous visualy, but her latest album, Arrasando does contain two incredibly catchy singles -- one of which, "Entre El Mar y Una Estrella" had a stay in the top ten of Billboard’s Hot Latin tracks -- and two excellently chosen cover tunes, Perez Prado’s "Menta y Canela" and Miriam Makeba’s chronically hook-y 1967 hit "Pata Pata" (both of which could have been rendered in English now that Thalia is comfortable with the language -- but more on that below). I have to emphasize, though that even if she never recorded a single song, her work in various telenovelas would still qualify her as a major Latin-American star. To provide a point of comparison, the shows which established her reputation as an actress are less like American soaps than they are the quintessence of what old movie buffs refer to as "the woman’s picture."