Topic: Mark Consuelos

Mark Andrew Consuelos (born March 30, 1971 in Zaragoza, Spain) is a television and film actor.

Consuelos was born in Zaragoza, Spain to parents of Mexican and Italian ancestry. His father was a politician in Spain. Consuelos has lived in Italy and the United States since childhood. He explained on Live with Regis and Kelly that while he does not speak Spanish, he does speak Italian. He grew up in Lebanon, Illinois, and later in Tampa, Florida. He attended Bloomingdale High School in Valrico, Florida, and then went to University of Notre Dame before transferring to and graduating from the University of South Florida with a degree in marketing, in 1994.

He had played small parts on television series before landing the role of Mateo Santos on the soap opera All My Children, in February 1995. There, he fell in love with his on-screen love interest, Kelly Ripa, and secretly married her in Las Vegas, in May 1995. At the time, he lived on co-star Winsor Harmon's sofa; Harmon was one of the few to know that co-stars Ripa and Consuelos were not only dating, but married.