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Marlene was born in Spanish Harlem and raised on the Upper West Side. Her parents are native Puerto Ricans. Her mother is Puerto Rican of European and African descent and father of European descent.
Her mother was once employed for VIP Violence Intervention Program in NYC which is a program which is responsible for providing support and homes for battered women and their children.
Her brother is an accomplished engineer. She comes from a rather artistic family. At the tender age of 3, Marlene had already begun to demonstrate a gift for comedic impressions, characterization as well as singing. She began taking ballet and flamenco briefly when she was 6. Therefore, her first experience on stage performing was as a dancer at 6, as an actress, 9 years old in an 8 minute play at her elementary school in 3rd grade.
She attended Holy Name School of Jesus. She promptly tried out for La Guardia High School of Music and Performing Arts but was denied. She then attended St. Michael's Academy for one year. While attending there, she took voice lessons at The Harlem School of the Arts. She immediately, auditioned for the second time for LaGuardia and this time got in. She then switched as a Sophomore to La Guardia majoring in voice.
Afterwards, she attended the Manhattan School of Music for Classical Voice.
Right after graduation, she went on to tour Croatia and Bosnia along with eleven others selected from Manhattan School of Music to perform
After MSM, She then landed her first major tour; "Porgy and Bess" with Living Arts playing Clara & traveling internationally. Immediately after, while in New Zealand she landed the role to understudy Julie, as well as perform in the ensemble for the Ausralian tour of Harold Prince's "ShowBoat" . She went on to play Julie, opposite Australian renowned actor Barry Otto, of Baz Luhrmann's Strictly Ballroom as well as opposite Dan Tullis, Jr. best known for his role as Officer Dan I'm Married With Children.
Her very first television appearance was as a guest in the talk show "Christina". This episode was an homage to LaGuardia High School.
She was a cast member for an underground Latin sketch comedy show !"Que Le Parece"!? (2005-2006), playing various characters, which ran close to a year after hours on Telemundo.
She has also appeared in numerous shorts and independent films such Jill Wisoff's Creating Karma as a yoga therapy student which starred Saturday Night Fever's Karen Lynn Gorney.
She played the Leading Lady to Melvin Van Peebles's character in his musical Unmitigated Truth in which he also directed at the Algonquin Theatre in 2009.
In 2011 she appeared in Celebrity Ghost Stories as the ghost of Billie Holiday. She has also made appearances as a model in Despierta America, Al Despertar and Las Comadres Con Gloria.
She was a semi regular cast member of David Lamb's Platanos and Collard Greens and In 2011 Royce Reed of Basketball Wives joined the cast briefly playing the role of the African American power student Malady. She has recorded and performed as a lead & backup singer in concert at Lincoln Center for Coati Mundi of Kid Creole & the Coconuts, Cory Daye of the Savannah Band, Joe Bataan, and N'Dea Davenport of the Brand New Heavies.
This actor, impressionist, lyric soprano with a crossover look, is now She is the winner of the 11th Annual One Festival for her one woman show "Marlene Goes to Hollywood".
She loves hiking, meditating, Tao Yoga, jogging, creative writing, watching old films. She played Red Hat in John Hoyt's upcoming film Mr. Frank.
