Early life

Vidal was born in Whitestone, Queens, the daughter of Josie, a secretary, and Manny Vidal, a tax consultant and businessman. Her parents moved from Puerto Rico and settled in Manhattan, New York, where Vidal and her two sisters Christina and Tanya were born. She also has a brother named Christian. After Vidal finished her elementary education, she auditioned and was accepted in the High School of Performing Arts. When she graduated, Vidal went to work with La Familia Theater Company, alongside Raul Julia and Julia Roberts. Vidal was 14 years old when she acted in the theater series Oye Willie and later on made her feature debut with a small role in Delivery Boys. Soon, she was working in T.V. with parts in shows such as The Cosby Show.

Career

From 1994-1995, Vidal appeared in New York Undercover in a recurring role as a reporter named Carmen. In the series she was sister to Det. Eddie Torres, played by Michael DeLorenzo. In 1995, she did some Off-Broadway and worked in The Commish. Vidal has also appeared in number of films, such as Odd Girl Out (2005), Naughty or Nice (2004); Chasing Papi (2003); I Like It Like That (1994); The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit (1998) and in Night and the City (1992), alongside Robert De Niro and Jessica Lange, directed by Irwin Winkler.

Vidal was series regular in the ABC police drama High Incident (1995-1996), and on The Brian Benben Show in 1998, and later had major recurring roles on Third Watch from 1999-2001 as Dr. Sarah Morales, and ER from 2001-2004 as firefighter Sandy Lopez. From 2001 to 2004, Vidal starred opposite Bonnie Bedelia in the Lifetime drama series The Division, for which she received the 2002 nomination for the ALMA Award in the Best Actress Category. In 2006, she had a brief role in the short-lived action series Smith, as one of the federal agents looking for Ray Liotta's group of thieves. In 2010 she starred in NBC drama The Event.

In 2013, Vidal began starring opposite Gabrielle Union in the BET drama series Being Mary Jane.

Personal life

She has been married to real estate agent Jay Cohen since 1990 and has two sons, Scott (b. 1992) and Max (b. 1998) and daughter Olivia (b. 2003) and lives in Los Angeles, California with them. She used to own a children's clothing store called Oodles in Studio City, California.

Filmography

Film

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1985	Delivery Boys	Tina
1986	Christmas Eve	Maria	TV Movie
1988	Miami Vice	Angel
1988	Nightmare Beach	Girl at Pool
1992	Night and the City	Carmen
1994	I Like It Like That	Magdalena Soto
1995	Mighty Aphrodite	Chorus Voice
1997	Destination Unknown	Marisol
1997	Fall	Sally
1997	The Third Twin	Lisa	TV Movie Nominated - ALMA Award for Outstanding Actress in a Made-for-Television Movie or Mini-Series
1998	The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit	Ramona
1998	The Taking of Pelham One Two Three	Babs Cardoza	TV Movie Nominated - ALMA Award for Outstanding Actress in a Made-for-Television Movie or Mini-Series
1998	Naked City: Justice with a Bullet	Lori Halloran	TV Movie
1998	Naked City: A Killer Christmas		TV Movie
1999	Hit and Run	Detective Rico	TV Movie
1999	Active Stealth	Maria	Direct-to-video
2001	The Blue Diner	Elena
2003	Chasing Papi	Carmen
2004	Naughty or Nice	Diana Ramiro	TV Movie
2005	Odd Girl Out	Barbara	TV Movie Imagen Award for Best Actress on Television
2007	Dark Mirror	Deborah Martin	Nominated - Imagen Award for Best Actress - Film
2009	Signal Lost	TV Newswoman
2009	Star Trek	Barracks Officer
2010	Baby	Dominique	Short film
2011	A Day Without Rain	Ana Lanza	Short film
2014	Victor	Lila

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1980	Oye Willie		PBS series
1987	The Cosby Show	Mrs. Miron	1 episode
1987, 1991	ABC Afterschool Special	Gloria Rodriguez	2 episodes
1988	Miami Vice	Angel Montepina	1 episode
1992	Law & Order	Lena Armendariz	1 episode
1994-95	New York Undercover	Carmen	Recurring role, 6 episodes
1995	The Commish	Connie Muldoon	2 episodes
1996-97	High Incident	Officer Jessica Helgado	Series regular, 22 episodes Nominated - ALMA Award for Outstanding Actress in a Drama Series (1996)
1998	The Brian Benben Show	Julie	Series regular, 8 episodes
1999	Wasteland	Unknown Role	2 episodes
1999-2001	Third Watch	Dr. Sara Morales	Recurring role, 19 episodes
2001-04	The Division	Inspector Magdalena "Magda" Ramirez	Series regular, 88 episodes Nominated - ALMA Award for Outstanding Actress in a Drama Series (2002) Nominated - Imagen Award for Best Actress in a Television Drama (2004)
2001-04	ER	Sandy Lopez	Recurring role, 12 episodes
2006	Boston Legal	Irma Levine	2 episodes
2006	Criminal Minds	Gina Sanchez	1 episode
2006-07	Smith	Valez	Recurring role, 4 episodes
2007	Numb3rs	Jessica Malloy	1 episode
2009	Without a Trace	Detective Bianca Gonzalez	1 episode
2009	CSI: Miami	Patricia Busick	1 episode
2009-10	Southland	Mia Sanchez	3 episodes
2010-11	The Event	Christina Martinez	Series regular, 14 episodes Nominated - Imagen Award for Best Supporting Actress - Television (2011)
2011	American Horror Story: Murder House	Stacy Ramos	Afterbirth episode
2012-13	Grimm	Lauren Castro	2 episodes
2013-present	Being Mary Jane	Kara	Series regular

[ Source: Wikipedia ]