Early life and education
Cruise was born in Río Piedras, Puerto Rico (now a district of San Juan).1 She later moved to the United States and earned a degree from Iowa State University before pursuing an acting career in Los Angeles.1
Career
Cruise's screen career began in 1987 with a role as Krystal in the action film Number One with a Bullet.1 The following year she appeared as Claudia's Mother in Stand and Deliver (1988), directed by Ramón Menéndez and starring Edward James Olmos, the critically lauded drama about real-life math teacher Jaime Escalante and his East Los Angeles students.1
She made her television debut in the same period, with an appearance on Falcon Crest (1989) and a guest role as Carmen Garcia in MacGyver (1990).1 A recurring presence on daytime television followed: she appeared as a nurse on The Young and the Restless across multiple episodes between 1993 and 1997.1
Her mid-1990s work included the films Criminal Behavior (1992), Lies and Lullabies, and Flashfire (1994), alongside recurring guest spots on Chicago Hope (1996 to 1998), where she played Rosa Trujillo and Martina Perez.1 She played Carmen in a 1998 episode of ER.1
One of her most recognized comedic cameos came in Seinfeld, Season 6, Episode 21, "The Fusilli Jerry," in which she played the Motor Vehicle Bureau clerk who unwittingly assigns Kramer the "ASSMAN" vanity plate.3 The episode aired on April 27, 1995, and remains a fan favorite.
At the turn of the decade she appeared in NYPD Blue (1999), Jack and Jill (2000), Living the Life (2000), Strong Medicine (2003), Judging Amy (2004), and Karen Sisco (2004).1 She played a Maid in a 2005 episode of Medium.1
Her most sustained television work came with Grey's Anatomy, where she appeared as a circulating nurse, ICU nurse, and scrub nurse across Seasons 2, 3, and 5 (2005 to 2009).1 In 2006 she appeared in My Name Is Earl as Inez and in Criminal Minds as Consuela Ramirez.1 Her final known screen credit is Crossing Over (2009), the immigration drama directed by Wayne Kramer.1
Ghostbusters
Ghostbusters II (1989)
In Ghostbusters II, Cruise portrays Maria, Dana Barrett's housekeeper and babysitter, who cares for the infant Oscar at Dana's apartment.2 She appears in Chapter 05 ("Investigating Oscar"), completing a feeding and handing Oscar to Dana just before the Ghostbusters arrive to investigate the unusual activity surrounding the baby. The character is listed in the film's credits simply as "Dana's Maid."2
The February 27, 1989 draft of the Ghostbusters II script includes a note that Maria also provided day care for Oscar, indicating a slightly expanded domestic role that did not make the final cut.4
The character's last name was never established onscreen, but the IDW Publishing expanded universe later canonized it using Cruise's own surname. On page 20 of Ghostbusters Volume 2 Issue #14, a note left by the phone is addressed to "Maria Cruise," folding the actress's real last name directly into the fiction.5 It is one of the more unusual instances of a performer's surname becoming part of the canonical continuity, effectively naming a character after the person who briefly played her.
References
Some content on this page was researched using the Ghostbusters Wiki on Fandom.
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"Yvette Cruise," IMDb, accessed 2026-06-13, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0190029/
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Ghostbusters II (1989), dir. Ivan Reitman. Columbia Pictures. Cast credit: Yvette Cruise as "Maria, Dana's Maid." IMDb title listing: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097428/
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"The Fusilli Jerry," Wikipedia, accessed 2026-06-13, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fusilli_Jerry. Season 6, Episode 21 of Seinfeld (NBC, April 27, 1995), written by Marjorie Gross, dir. Andy Ackerman.
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Aykroyd, Dan and Harold Ramis. Ghostbusters II (February 27, 1989 draft screenplay). Hosted by Spook Central, https://www.spookcentral.tk/sclib/ghostbusters-ii-movie-script-february-27-1989.html; annotated notes: Ghostbusters Wiki, Fandom, https://ghostbusters.fandom.com/wiki/Ghostbusters_II_February_27,_1989
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Burnham, Erik (w), Schoening, Dan (a). Ghostbusters Volume 2 #14 (IDW Publishing, March 2014), p. 20.
