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Long Island native Maria Pusateri is an actor and award-winning producer/director of documentary and nonfiction. She first found her passion for acting while studying at the legendary HB Studio in New York City with actor/director Bill Hickey. In 1982, she put her career and acting pursuits on hold to raise her family. Maria continued to work on her craft intermittently over the years and has performed in theater, independent film, and new media.
Some of Pusateri’s independent film performances include a powerful executive frustrated by her diminishing role at work in Title VII. She portrayed a free-spirited young grandmother at odds with her daughter about raising her grandson in Over Dinner. One of Maria’s special talents is her ability to quickly learn accents - put to good use in local theater productions of Noises Off, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, and Confiscation - a post WW II one-act play set in Hungary.
Maria’s documentary filmmaking debut was the 2006 award-winning feature Vito After: A 9/11 Responder Copes in the Aftermath, the story of her NYPD homicide detective brother-in-law as he copes with his traumatic experiences during the two years following September 11th. Maria was associate producer for Cynthia Wade’s Oscar-nominated documentary short Mondays at Racine (2013); it focused on inspiring stories of women bravely coping with breast cancer, and the sisters who provide loving support to them at their salon.
In the early 2000s, Pusateri received several industry awards and a NY Emmy nomination for Programming About the Arts as field producer for Cablevision’s Metro Channels. She created over 40 episodes of the cultural arts series Unblinking Eye. Some memorable shows included the award-winning play reading series Food for Thought, with actors such as Elaine Stritch, John Shea, Judith Light, and Bob Dishy. Other shows included the Irish Film Fleadh with Cillian Murphy (promoting his 1999 film Sunburn), Free Arts for Abused Children, a charitable event where she interviewed Harrison Ford, and book events with Ethan Hawke & Uma Thurman, Jerry Stiller & Anne Meara, and Jackie Collins.
In the late 1970s, Maria worked in advertising and promotion for Paramount Television Distribution, and later in theatrical publicity for Paramount Pictures. She was part of the team creating promotional materials for some of Paramount’s legendary TV shows such as Happy Days, Mork & Mindy, Laverne & Shirley, Taxi, and Bosom Buddies. While at Paramount Pictures, she worked on field publicity campaigns for some of their early 1980s releases, including Raiders of the Lost Ark, Gallipoli, Ragtime, Reds, Grease 2, and An Officer and a Gentleman.
In 2025, Maria and her husband Donald moved from Long Island to the LA area to be near their grandson, daughter, and son-in-law. They are the proud parents of Nicole Pusateri, an award-winning documentary producer, and the awesomely talented rock drummer Don Pusateri, Jr.
