In a time when being a triple threat has become the standard, Grasie Mercedes pushes the envelope to quadruple threat. To keep herself in the Hollywood game and make a living, Mercedes has sculpted a multifaceted career as an actor, a host, a blogger, and a stylist. 

Mercedes’s distribution across the borders of several professions has made her a true 21^st century media entrepreneur. Her aspirations didn’t quite fit the mold — so she created her own.

The 33-year-old native New Yorker is a second generation American — the first of her Dominican family to be born in the United States. She was also the first of her family to go to college. Mercedes attended NYU where she studied broadcast journalism.

Fran Stern, a former professor of Mercedes, always knew she was headed for success. “She was extremely bright, motivated, and charming,” said Stern, who still keeps in touch with Mercedes. “I knew she would be able to do whatever she wanted.”  

Stern was right. Just two weeks after graduation, Mercedes landed a job at ABC News, followed shortly thereafter by a production job at MTV, where she had also interned during college. “She was sort of famous around [NYU J-School] for having had an internship at MTV and then getting a job there,” Stern explained.

The young college grad started as a production assistant on one of the network’s shows working under MTV Executive Producer Summer Strauch. “She’s really smart,” said Strauch. “I think in production, you’re not looked at as a brainiac but she always had a really, really strong work ethic.”  

As much as Mercedes enjoyed her job at MTV, she quietly possessed a passion for the dramatic arts. “All along I had kind of had this dream of acting while I was studying journalism,” she said. “I came to a crossroads where I was like, ‘Is this what I really want to do?’ Because all along, I had been taking acting classes and was doing plays and I loved it.”

This passion later led her 25-year-old self to quit her job as a producer at MTV and move to Los Angeles to pursue an acting career. After a few months of waiting tables and saving money, she was off to Hollywood.

“She basically risked it all,” said Strauch, who also divulged that Mercedes was being groomed to be an executive producer prior to leaving MTV.  “But I always knew she wanted to act.” 

Since Mercedes’s move to the West Coast, she has appeared on “All My Children,” “NCIS,” and “Criminal Minds” (among others), has gotten a number of guest-hosting gigs on popular TV shows like “E! News,” launched her own eponymous style blog, and has established herself as a personal stylist.

But not before she served her time as a starving artist. “This business is super hard,” she said. “I was still waiting tables, which I hated.” She admits: “No one is an overnight success.”

Mercedes says she didn’t become confident about her acting career until she hit 30. Even now, the aspiring starlet has yet to obtain a real breakout role. But Mercedes’s acting mentor of six years, Josh Pais—who is perhaps most famous for his role as Raphael in “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles”—says she’s got what it takes to make it.

“She’s got an amazing look and her work just keeps getting better and better,” Pais said, who still works with Mercedes regularly in his L.A.-based acting class. “Somehow with Grasie, she’s driven and focused, but doesn’t get a hard edge about it. She’s equally playful. She’s a bright light—full of amazing, positive energy.”

Strauch agrees. “She just shines,” said Strauch. “You meet her and you know she’s a star.”

Regardless of talent, acting is rarely a stable career, which is why Mercedes decided to explore fashion as well.  A couple years after her move to L.A., a friend of Mercedes — who was working as a creative director at American Eagle Outfitters — asked her to help him style the models for a photo shoot. She did, and was asked to return to help style future shoots. Mercedes realized she liked styling, too.  

“I got more into styling and fashion, and I started my blog,” she said. “Then I started taking on personal styling clients, and was able to stop waiting tables, which was fantastic!”

Mercedes describes her style as “lazy chic.” “My day-to-day wear is really simple – usually some kind of t-shirt and jeans with my vintage boots and some accessories,” she said.  Her style icons are Alexa Chung, Kate Bosworth, and Kate Moss.

One fashion blog, janehasajob.com, described Mercedes’s style as a “fresh” look that “separates her from the media herd.”  Latina.com deemed Mercedes “always flawlessly styled.” 

Knowing a thing or two about fashion also helped out with her hosting career. “The hosting world has changed a lot over the last few years,” Mercedes said. “It’s not enough anymore to just be attractive and know how to speak in front of the camera — they want you to be an expert at something.” Mercedes became an expert at fashion, and has since appeared on a noteworthy seven episodes of The Style Network’s current season of “Style Star.”

So the question is: What drives a person to pursue so many things at once? “I love it all,” Mercedes said matter-of-factly. “I couldn’t do it if I didn’t love it or wasn’t passionate about it.”  

But it’s more than that.  Mercedes’s Dominican-born mother had her at 17, and raised her firstborn daughter on her own. “Not coming from money had a huge impact on me, because I saw in my mom that, with hard work and dedication, you can make anything happen,” she said.

After watching her mother obtain her G.E.D. and work her way up the ranks in the finance industry to an executive assistant position at Lehman Brothers (a financial services firm), Mercedes felt she had a responsibility to make her mother proud. “How could I not work my butt off to be successful knowing how hard my mom worked to give me a good life?” Mercedes said.

And it’s hard work, Mercedes says, that will pay off.  “You’ve got to be dedicated and you’ve got to work hard, and you really need to do something to further your career every single day,” she said. “And have a kick-ass website!”