article_snippet: Early days: Ms Rivera career began at 17 and Ms Rivera was briefly a bikini model before becoming an actress .
article_snippet: Ms Rivera was once a familiar face on Mexican TV thanks to Ms Rivera soap acting career .
article_snippet: Such controversy is all a far cry from the early days of Ms Rivera career when, as a fresh-faced 17-year-old in Mexico City, Ms Rivera entered a newspaper modelling competition and won.
article_snippet: Ms Rivera sometimes racy soap career has made Ms Rivera one of Mexico's most colourful public figures .
article_snippet: That early success launched a career that would go on to include a brief spell as a swimwear model followed by a move into acting, starting in 1989 when Ms Rivera won a small part in telenovela Dulce Desafío.
article_snippet: A long - and apparently lucrative - career, most of it spent at Mexico's largest broadcaster Televisa, was born, with Ms Rivera going on to star in succession of low-budget soaps, among them Alcanzar una estrella II and, most recently, Destilando amor.