"Beautiful Maria of my Soul" is a song prominently featured in the 1992 motion picture The Mambo Kings

The Mambo Kings

The Mambo Kings is a 1992 drama film starring Armand Assante and Antonio Banderas. Directed by Arne Glimcher in his directorial debut, the film is based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love by Oscar Hijuelos...

. In the film, it is performed in Spanish by Antonio Banderas

Antonio Banderas

José Antonio Domínguez Banderas , better known as Antonio Banderas, is a Spanish film actor, film director, film producer and singer...

 and in English by Los Lobos

Los Lobos

Los Lobos are a multiple Grammy Award–winning American Chicano rock band from East Los Angeles, California. Their music is influenced by rock and roll, Tex-Mex, country, folk, R&B, blues, brown-eyed soul, and traditional Spanish and Mexican music such as cumbia, boleros and norteños.-History:The...

. The song was written and composed by Arne Glimcher

Arne Glimcher

Arnold "Arne" Glimcher is an American art dealer, film producer and director. He is the founder of The Pace Gallery and is widely known as one of the art world's most powerful dealers. Glimcher has also produced and directed several films, including The Mambo Kings and Just Cause.-Life and...

 and Robert Kraft (composer). The film is based on the book The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love.

In the film, the character (Banderas) writes the song for his long-lost love, Maria Riveiro (Talisa Soto

Talisa Soto

-Early life:Born Miriam Soto in Brooklyn, New York, Soto is the youngest of four children born to an Italian mother and a Canadian father of Puerto Rican descent. Her parents later relocated to Northampton, Massachusetts where Soto and her siblings were raised and educated.-Modeling:At the age of...

).

This song received an Academy Award nomination, finally won by "A Whole New World

A Whole New World

"A Whole New World" is the Oscar winning featured pop single from the soundtrack to the 1992 Disney film Aladdin. It was composed by Alan Menken with lyrics by Tim Rice. The song is a ballad between the primary characters Aladdin and Jasmine about the new world they are going to discover together....

", from Aladdin

Aladdin

Aladdin is a Middle Eastern folk tale. It is one of the tales in The Book of One Thousand and One Nights , and one of the most famous, although it was actually added to the collection by Antoine Galland ....

. Antonio Banderas refused to sing the song live, and tenor

Tenor

The tenor is a type of male singing voice and is the highest male voice within the modal register. The typical tenor voice lies between C3, the C one octave below middle C, to the A above middle C in choral music, and up to high C in solo work. The low extreme for tenors is roughly B2...

 Placido Domingo

Plácido Domingo

Plácido Domingo KBE , born José Plácido Domingo Embil, is a Spanish tenor and conductor known for his versatile and strong voice, possessing a ringing and dramatic tone throughout its range...

 became the first Spaniard to perform at the Oscars ceremony.

Italian sisters Paola & Chiara covered this song for the album "festival" (2002)

The song was performed by Robert Moscio in his 1999 album "One By One".