SILVER LAKE, Calif. -- With the writers' strike separating actor Tony Plana from his Ugly Betty family, the veteran actor has been left to ponder a very private pain on his own.
On the hit ABC series (the final remaining episodes air tonight and next week, 8 ET/PT) Plana's character, patriarch Ignacio Suarez, has struggled with the loss of wife Rosa to cancer, the murder of his daughter Hilda's fiance, as well as daughter Betty's growing pains.
In his own life, he has slowly been losing his mami, Conchita, 76, to Alzheimer's disease. Seated at a table in a quiet corner of a Mexican restaurant, Plana, 55, says, "I almost didn't take this interview because it's too painful, but I think it's important to talk about it because it's such a devastating disease. I think it's more painful than death. At least death is over; this thing is insidiously long and unpredictable."
Before the interview, Plana sat down with his papa, Pepe, 81, a former banker, to chronicle Conchita's long decline. Plana spreads photos out on a table depicting his mother, also a former banker, over the years. The family, which includes Plana's younger brothers, Victor, 52, and Oscar, 45, fled Cuba when Plana was a child, and they ended up settling in Culver City, Calif., where Pepe found work in a Tootsie Roll factory.
"We got free Tootsie Rolls for quite a while," Plana recalls with a faint smile. But it was Conchita, he says, who was "the center of our lives."
He remembers that her happiest time was right before she got sick; her sons were all successful and starting families.
"My mother was the glue who held the family together in ways my father hasn't been able to," he says. "She was such a gregarious, joyful mama. We have had to watch that light at the center of our existence slowly dim."
Plana and his father recalled Conchita taking Plana's young daughter to a park just four blocks from home and forgetting her way back. She then began repeating questions, struggling with taking messages and experiencing difficulty with household chores.
When she got in a car accident, Pepe took away his wife's driving privileges. She developed paranoia and hallucinations and began experiencing motor and vision complications, causing multiple at-home falls.
"It became obvious to us that my dad couldn't handle her," Plana recalls.
Since 2005, Conchita has been in a nursing home just five blocks from Pepe, who visits "morning, noon and night," says Plana. "He is there for her breakfast, lunch and dinner and when she goes to bed. He keeps track of all her medications. He drives the administrators crazy, but he has dedicated his life to this. He is a saint."
There are times, Plana says, when his mother, now on a feeding tube, shows glimpses of her old self. He recalls visiting her shortly before the holidays, "and she woke right up and was listening to me."
Plana remembers the days when he brought his mother to premieres of his early movies (which include Zoot Suit, An Officer and a Gentleman and Three Amigos). "But more than anything I've done, Ugly Betty would have been her ultimate favorite," he says with a sigh. "She would have loved Michael Urie's character," the over-the-top gay assistant Marc.
Just as the Plana family keeps Conchita's traditions alive, so too does the Suarez household remember Betty's mother.
"He is still married to Rosa," Plana says of his character. "He never takes off his wedding ring (Plana's own), and the house is decorated just how she left it -- her furniture, the art on the wall. There is a commitment to preserve her memory in our lives."
But Ignacio's life goes on. Much has yet to be explained about the character's past, and Plana wonders if older daughter Hilda is biologically his.
"They haven't clearly clarified how many children were born," points out Plana, who previously appeared on such series as Resurrection Blvd., 24 and City of Angels.
A member of the Alzheimer's Association, Plana says his Betty family has proved a tremendous comfort during this agonizing personal chapter. He has received the most support from his TV daughters, Ana Ortiz (Hilda) and America Ferrera (Betty). Vanessa Williams (Wilhelmina) is in talks to sing with him at a March Alzheimer's fundraiser. TV grandson Mark Indelicato (Justin) has befriended Plana's children, Alejandro, 17, and Isabel, 14.
And just before Christmas, most of the cast came to the home of Plana and his wife of 20 years, Ada Maris, for their second annual Ugly Betty tamale party.
"We play games and have such a fun time," says Plana, who also took time over the holidays to bring his mother flowers. "Sometimes she's responsive; sometime's she's not," he says, shrugging. "You have those little miracles when the portholes open and you're able to have a decent, rational conversation. And then she goes away. That she can't share in my success is the prick of reality in this bed of roses I've found myself in."
(c) USA TODAY