La Madrastra (1981 telenovela)

La Madrastra ("The Stepmother" in English) is a Chilean telenovela made by Canal 13 in 1981. It starred Uruguay-born actors Jael Unger and Walter Kliche. It has been remade by Mexican telenovela giant Televisa. It has been remade as Vivir un poco (English: Live a little) in 1985, Para Toda La Vida (For a lifetime) in 1996 and its most recent remake was made in 2005 and was titled La Madrastra.

Plot

The series starts twenty years earlier when a group of Chilean friends travel for fun to Los Angeles, United States. One night in the hotel a gunshot is heard, and Marcia Jones (Jael Unger), the first to hear it, runs to the room where she heard the shot to find her friend Patricia dead on the floor of the room. Marcia picks up the gun by accident, therefore becoming the sole murder suspect. Months later she's found guilty and sentenced to 20 years in prison in the United States. During the trial it's discovered that at the time of her death, Patricia was pregnant. Every friend Marcia thought she had shuns her, including her husband Esteban San Lucas (Walter Kliche), who leaves her in the United States and forces her to sign a marriage annulment.

The story moves on to present day (1981), Marcia has now become a bitter woman who only maintains contact with her attorney, who has always believed in her innocence and tries to help her. Father Belisario (Tennyson Ferrada), a priest in Pomaire also remains in touch with Marcia and regularly sends her Chilean food and clay which Marcia uses to make highly-appraised figurines which had allowed her to generate a small fortune by herself. One day Marcia is released from prison and decides to return to Chile. At this point, Esteban is about to marry Ana Rosa (Ana María Palma), to the dismay of Héctor (Ramón Farías), Luna (Claudia Di Girólamo), and Ricardo (Alberto Vega), Esteban's children with Marcia. Especially since the wedding day coincides with another anniversary of the "mother's death"--Esteban had told this lie to his kids so he wouldn't have to tell them she was a murderer.

Days later, the group of friends receives an invitation to a hotel where they find out that they have been summoned by Marcia herself, who has returned to reclaim her children and finally discover Patricia's real murderer. She begins by making Esteban cease his relationship with Ana Rosa, and goes on to remarry him herself, therefore becoming "La Madrastra" ("The Stepmother") of her own children who reject her completely and make her life impossible at first. But as time goes on, Marcia slowly regains their trust.

At the same time, she slowly uncovers the truth: Patricia's murderer was Estrella (Gloria Münchmeyer), who killed Patricia because she was expecting a baby that could have possibly come from her affair with Estrella's husband Donato (Jaime Vadell) who might have left Estrella to be with Patricia and their baby.

Cast

Impact

The series was the first Chilean telenovela to be broadcast in color and is also regarded as the country's most successful series to date.^[1] The series finale (aired on September 18, 1981) marked 80 points of rating (rating at the time was performed as a house-to-house survey), leaving Santiago practically "paralyzed" amidst the celebration of their 181th anniversary of independence since everyone was watching the telenovela. Director Óscar Rodríguez, said that "It was heard that meetings from top executives and ministers were postponed" ("Se supo de reuniones de ministros y ejecutivos que fueron suspendidas") and that "that afternoon, there wasn't a single soul walking the streets of the city and that soda fountains in downtown Santiago put up signs saying "Here we watch La Madrastra."" (esa tarde no circulaba un alma por las calles y que las fuentes de soda del centro de Santiago pusieron carteles que decían “aquí se ve La Madrastra”).^[2]

For Canal 13's 50th-anniversary celebrations in 2009, they produced and released a small series narrating the story of television on Chilean society. In the series it was described the level of popularity of the series back when the series finale was aired in 1981. Additionally, the series touched on the impact that this telenovela had on the careers of the actors, specially the role of Gloria Münchmeyer as Estrella, the killer in the telenovela.

References

1. ↑ Small summary of the impact of La Madrastra (Spanish)
2. ↑ Small review of the finale (Spanish)

External links

• La Madrastra at the Internet Movie Database