A sultry, dark-haired beauty, Leonor Varela was a virtual unknown in the USA when she was tapped for the lead in the lavish ABC miniseries "Cleopatra" (1999). The Chilean-born actress had a peripatetic childhood; her parents fled the military regime in her native country when she was a baby and settled first in Costa Rica, before moving to Germany, the USA (Colorado) and France. Varela opted to remain in Paris to pursue an education when her parents returned to Santiago in the early 1990s. Her dentist recommended her to a French filmmaker, who was about to shoot a film in Chile. After meeting
