Cris Morena

Cris Morena is an actress, host, producer, composer and writer from Argentina. Since the mid-90s, Cris dedicates herself only to producing and creating shows targeted at kids and teenagers. Her TV shows spawn merchandises, Broadway style musicals and succeful versions from all around the world.

She’s one of the top producers in Argentina and currently has an exclusivity contract with Telefe. Right now she’s producing Casi Angeles which is aired every weekday at 5:20 PM in Telefe.

She also discovered lots of popular actors in Argentina and Latin America incluiding Michel Brown, Romina Gaetani, Celeste Cid, Luisana Lopilato, Camila Bordonaba, Benjamin Rojas, Felipe Colombo, Agustina Cherri, Marcela Kloosterboer, Luciana Castro, el Chido Fernandez, Agustina Lecouna, Manuela Pal, Octavio Borro, Jazmín Stuart, Dolores Fonzi, Romina Yan, Tomas Fonzi, among others.

Life and show business career

Cris Morena was born Maria Cristina de Giacomi in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

She started as model when she was 17 years old and was the face for the Lee jeans for some time. Later, she was selected to host the young-oriented show Voltop.

While hosting Voltop, she met Gustavo Yanklevich and they fell in love. Much later, Gustavo became one of the most powerful man in Argentina's television when he became Telefe director.

In 1974, Cris and Gustava married and they had two sons: Romina and Tomás and Cris decided to retire so she could take care of the two.

She came back doing underground theater and soon got a job at a telenovela called "Dulce Fugitiva". She played Laura Moreno.

In 1980, Cris Morena decided to star writing music. To this days she is the most successful songwriter in Argentina and the one who made most moneys in copyrights and sold more albums together with her song-writing partner Carlos Nilson.

Soon, her career started to take-off an and in 1984, she participated in a comedy show, "Mesa de Noticias" ("News Table"), where she was casted as "Cris".

Morena became an established television actress in Argentina during the middle 1980s, when her number of roles as an actress began to rise steadily. In 1986, she participated in the comedy film, "Rambito y Rambón: Primera Misión" ("Little Rambo and Big Rambo: First Mission", a spoof of Sylvester Stallone's Rambo character), alongside Argentine comedy legends Alberto Olmedo and Jorge Porcel. In 1987, Morena acted in another film, "Los Colimbas al Ataque" ("The Colimbas to the Attack").

Cris returned to television during 1988, playing "Norma" in "Ella contra mí" ("She against me"). Her next soap opera, "Amigos son los Amigos" ("Friends will be Friends"), was a major success. Morena once again played a character named "Cris" in this soap opera.

Respected producer

After a three year hiatus, Morena returned to Argentine television in 1991, as the creator, host and producer of the show "Jugate Conmigo" (Come Play with Me or Give Your Best with Me). At the time, she was married with Telefe director Gustavo Yanklevich.

She hosted the show together with eight teenagers that changed each season. During the show they would perform songs, play games and receive musical guests. The show was a huge hit, being aired every weekday and with very satisfactory rating. The show also won the Martin Fierro, Argentina's equivalent of the Emmy awards and spawned four albums (all topped the Argentina's album charts and in 92, 93 and 94 it was the best-selling album of the year according to CAPIF). All songs were written by Cris and Carlos Nilson.

Besides succeful albums, the show also spawned licensed products and two live concerts, one in 1992 in Estadio de las Obras and one in 1994 in Teatro Gran Rex.

1993 marked her return to acting, as she once again formed part of the cast of "Amigos son los Amigos", this time for a TV movie. Whereas 1993 marked her return as a television actress, 1994 marked her retirement as such.

In her last presentation to date playing a role on television, she gave life to "Paula" in 1994's "Quereme" ("Love me"), which was Telefe's biggest bet for the Summer of 92. She starred the show which had the participation of lots of respected actors and all the 8 teenagers from Jugate Conmigo 92 season. The show didn't achieve the expected ratings and it was cancelled after four months.

The original Chiquititas

After months of thinking about a new concept, she became inspired and, together with a number of other producers and writers, Morena approached Telefe's board of directors about a children and teenagers telenovela, about a group of kids that live in an orphanage. Thus "Chiquititas" ("Little Girls" is the literal translation but "Tiny Angels" is the official English title) was born.

Chiquititas started huge polemics in it's home country. Critics hated the show and the program was often critcized for it's melodramatic settings and an unbelievable setting where the orphanage was a big mansion and the children wore fashionable uniforms and brand clothes. The show was also hugely critcized because of the numerous merchandising and tie-ins.

Depsite the negative critics, Chiquititas was a huge hit and lasted for seven years, being the most-watched show among kids during all those years, selling over 2 million albums and millions of licensed products and tickets for live concerts.

The show began to be televised during 1995, with Morena's daughter, Romina Yan, being cast as "Belén", the orphanage's director. Prior to "Chiquitias"' television debut, Morena also composed a set of songs to be sung by the "Chiquititas" cast. Every year a new album with about 10 new songs were released. All the albums were huge success and topped the charts for weeks, frequently being the best-selling album of the year.

"Chiquititas" became an international success. Apart from the aforementioned CDs, a magazine toys, apparel, cosmetics, hair products, accessories, a monthly magazine, among many other products were released.

After the successful Jugate Conmigo, Chiquititas consolidated Cris as a renowned producer.

"Chiquititas" was the story of girls living in an orphanage. The main character was Belen, the orphanage director and Mili, Agustina Cherri character, was the central character in the kids cast.

The girls were the lead of the series for the first two series, but starting in Season 3 the boys and girls from the orphanage start getting equal attention. At the end of the Season 3, Mili said goodbye to the show. The reason for that was because Cris chose Agustina Cherri to star in her new teen-oriented show, Verano del 98.

Beginning from the second season, Chiquititas complete cast would present a live show every year during three months on Teatro Gran Rex (capacity: 3,000 people) in Buenos Aires. The concert was presented every day during the Winter Vacations (in July) and on weekends in June, August and September. The concerts were always Broadway style, with big production and a big budget and every year the Chiquititas concert had the biggest profit of the year among every tour and musical. While the TV show wasn't very popular among critics, the live shows was successful even among them, with their spectacular scenography and never before seen special effects.

In 1998 the show had a new visual. It was the peak of the show and the 1998 album (La Musica de Chiquititas Vol. 4) was the franchise best-selling album and the best-selling album of the year in Argentina. The Chiquititas live show was presented three times a day instead of the usual two times a day like in previous seasons and almost 400,000 people saw the Chiquititas 98 concert, being the most popular Chiquititas live show ever. 1998 was the end of a cycle for Chiquititas with most of its cast-members leaving the show, including protagonists Romina Yan and Facundo Arana. The show would start with a new story-line in 1999 and whole new cast.

In the end of the 4th season, the kids were all adopted by Belen, Romina Yan character, and Alejo, Facundo Arana character. The end of the cycle shows Belen adopting all the kids and all of them shouting "Father! Father" for Alejo, who cries full of emotions. Then, Belen narrates what every character become: veterinarian, actress, teachers, etc. The season ended with the whole cast singing "En el Comenzo" at a huge ship in the middle of the sea. It was a very emotional ending and it was highly-praised by the fans.

In 1998, Cris Morena also created the successful "Verano del 98" (Summer of 98).

In 1999, Chiquititas came back with a new story-line without any of the old characters (some of the actors came back but as new characters). The story was now in a farm and in a mansion next door. To attract older fans, a teenage cast was added. Grecia Colomares and Dario Grandinetti were the leads and Marcela Klobooster was the main character among the youngsters. The season had a dramatic and cinematographic ending where the orphanage at the farm was burned down by the villain.

In 2000, the show came back to the original orphanage and Romina Gaetani replaced Grecia Colomares as the lead actress.

2001 was a very busy year for Chiquititas. Argentina was facing it's biggest crisis and Telefe decided to cut the budget for Chiquititas. Cris Morena decided she didn't want to continue the show with a smaller production, but as the previous season ended with a cliffhanger, it was decided to make Chiquititas a weekly show and daily at Chiquititas time-slot it was shown "Chiquititas: La Historia" (Chiquititas: The History) with the best moments from previous season. For the 7th Season, Agustina Cherri came back for the show as the lead.

Cris Morena had a fight with Telefe and decided to not renew her contract with the channel. As Chiquititas was name registered by the channel, she couldn't continue Chiquititas in another channel and after 7 very successful years, Cris decided to end the show with the Chiquititas de Oro ceremony, where she gave a Chiquitita de Oro (Golden Chiquitita) for every cast-member.

But 2001 was a bittersweet year for Chiqutiitas fans: while it was the end of the show and Cris decided to end her 10 year relationship with Telefe, it was the year they had more Chiquititas ever: the daily retrospective show, the weekly new episodes, the live concert at Teatro Gran Rex and Chiquititas, la Pelicula (Chiquititas the Movie), which was one of the most successful movies of the year.

In 1997, Chiquititas also gained a Brazilian version for the country's no 2-net SBT. The show had an all Brazilian cast (with Flavia Monteiro as Carolina and Fernanda Souza as Mili) but it was filmed in Buenos Aires, at the same studios as the original version. The directors from the channel expected Chiquititas to have 10 points of Ibope, but in the first episode the show reached 18 points. It became SBT's most-watched show and the first CD sold over 500,000 copies. The second season was even more successful and lots of Chiquititas products were released and the 2nd album went Diamond and sold over 1 million copies. The cast also caused mass-hysteria when they visited São Paulo to promote the show and the album. Chiqutitas Brazil had four seasons (the 3rd and the 4th season were made as one season in the Brazil version and the 5th season was also in a farm, as the original version, but the cast and the characters were still the same, different from the original version).

Like the Argentine version, lots of the actors from the Brazilian version went on to become popular actors including Bruno Gagliasso, Débora Falabella, Stephany and Kayky Brito, Marcos Pasquim, Bianca Renaldi, Carlas Diaz and many others.

In 1998 a Mexican version was made for TV Azteca with Mexican cast and filmed in Argentina, but the Mexican version was a flop and it ended production before they completed the first season.

At the end of its run, the show had received four Martin Fierros for Best Kids Show, 7 highly-successful albums, six sold-out seasons at Teatro Gran Rex (including a 3D live show for 2000), one highly-successful movie, two local versions and more than 400 licensed products and was the most successful kids show ever in Argentina.

A Spanish version for Antena 3 and an American version (to be titled Tiny Angels) were considered, but never went on production.

Chiquititas was also a huge phenomenon in Israel, where the album sold bucket-loads and lots of merchandise were released and four cast-members visited the country for promotion: Camila Bordonaba, Felipe Colombo, Sebastian Francini and Nadia DiCello.

Chiquititas was re-made two times: in 2003 she did "Rincon de Luz" (Little Corner of Light) for Canal 9. Rincon de Luz was the name of the Chiqutitas' orphanage and the show had a different name because Morena had sold the rights to the "Chiquititas" name to Telefe (and regretted that decision in 2001, when she had a fight with the channel and couldn't continue the show on other network). Rincon de Luz wasn't as successful as previously Chiquititas season.

In 2006, Morena came back to Telefe to produce a new season for Chiquititas, five years since the end of the original versions.

Chiquititas, the original version, was also a huge phenomenon in Israel.

Teenage shows

While "Chiquititas" was a monster hit among kids and preteens, Morena decided to produce a teen-oriented show. "Verano del '98" ("Summer of 98"). Morena composed some songs to the show and was also the creator, but she produced only half of the first season. Former "Chiquititas" stars Cherri and Guido Kaczka played a romantic couple in "Verano del '98". Other former "Chiquititas" actors participated as well.

As the show's title suggests, this soap opera was intended to be only a series to be shown during the summer of 1998 but the show was so successful that Telefe decided to produce a complete season. Verano del 98 had a 1999 season and in 2000, for its last season, it was renamed "Verano Eterno" (Endless Summer).

The teen soap, which also had lots of musics and spawned three highly-successful albums (all of which were certified at least 2 times platinum), told the story of teenagers growing up on the small seaside town of Costa Esperanza.

Plans for a Brazilian version of Verano were made, but it never happened and Cris Morena created the original concept and produced the first season, as well as composed some of the music, but when Telefe, satisfied with the high ratings, decided to renew the show for a second season, Cris decided to left the show to other producers and to do only Chiquititas.

At the end of 2001, Cris Morena decided to produce a new teen-oriented show called Rebeldes and to produce the show, she founded her own producing company Cris Morena Group.

The show would star many former Chiquititas and would had Luisana Lopilato, Felipe Colombo, Camila Bordonaba and Felipe Colombo as the leads. The four were the most popular cast-members during the last four seasons of Chiquititas.

The show didn't had much money to produce, until Israeli producer Yair Dori decided to co-produce the show thanks to the huge phenomenon Chiquititas was at the country. Yair Dori is the most powerful producer in Israel.

At March 2002 started in Canal 9 the show Rebelde Way. The show had a huge impact in Argentina and Latin America. Morena along with her usual partner Carlos/Rocky Nilson composed the music for "Rebelde Way" as well.

The show about teenagers growing-up in an elite boarding school soon became Canal 9's most-watched program and it achieved ratings bigger than any other teenage soap for the last few years (the only two successful teen soaps since the early 90s were the Cris created ones: Verano del 98 and Rebelde Way).

The show spawned the band Erreway with the four main actors. Erreway album "Señales" went Platinum in its first week.

Erreway did a series of concert in Teatro Gran Rex in September 2002 and in the end of the year, they went to Israel with the whole cast of the soap. Rebelde Way was a huge phenomenon in Israel and they had a Beatles-like reception, being headlines in the most respected newspapers and having to change hotels two times because of the hysterical fans. The 200,000 seats for the 20 concerts in Tel-Aviv sold out in less than one week, with tickets starting at S$50,00. The four members also starred commercials for McDonald's Israel and many other Israeli brands.

In the middle of its second season, the show moved from Canal 9 to America after Canal 9 didn't had the money to pay for Cris high salary. The show had two highly successful seasons, but there was a drop in the ratings after the show moved to America.

Erreway did two tours around Argentina, two concert seasons in Teatro Gran Rex and concerts in Bolivia, Peru, Israel, Uruguay, Paraguay, among others.

Rebelde Way was adapted to Mexico (the huge worldwide phenomenon Rebelde) and India (Remix, which was also a big hit among local teens). A Brazilian pilot was made, but it wasn't picked up and a Spanish version was also close to happen, but it never did (instead, Rebelde Way, the original, ended being hugely successful in the country).

In 2004, after the end of the series, the four members made the movie "Erreway: Cuatro Caminos" which was very successful and released their third and last album, Memoria.

In 2005, the show exploded in Spain while being shown by local channel Localia. It was soon picked-up by the broadcast channel Cuatro and an Erreway compilation was released and topped the Spanish album charts for two weeks. Camila Bordonaba and Felipe Colombo went to Spain in 2006 to promote the album with a series of signing seasons in departments stores (in each signing, over a thousand fans attended) and in the end of the year, the four members will reunite for the first time in two years for four concerts in Madrid, Barcelona, Vigo and Zaragoza.

The format will be soon adapted to Chile, Portugal and Russia (who already successfully showed the original version).

Floricienta

Floricienta (a mix of Flor, the main character, with Cenicienta, Spanish for Cinderella) was the story of Florencia, a very fun and caring girl who became the baby-sitter for the Fitzwalden brothers.

Besides the name, Floricienta didn't had much similarities between the usual "good girl versus bad girl to get the prince", the fact both are fairy-tales (Floricienta was billed as 21st Century Fairytale), the fact both are charismatic and orphans and that both have the shoes as their trademark. Floricienta logo is her Converse-style sneakers and she's always wearing them and during the first episode, she forgets them on Federico's (the "prince") housse.

Floricienta was critically-acclaimed (the other Cris shows were despised by critics) thanks to its fun story-line and dialogue, creative editing and post-production and the charisma of the main actress, Florencia Bertotti, and became the biggest licensing brand in Argentina in 2004 and 2005, with all the merchandise from the show selling like hot-cakes and hugely successful concerts in Teatro Gran Rex (with huge productions).

Floricienta started with a good 12 points in its first episode and by the end of the first season episode (with the death of Federico, Flor's love) the show achieved ratings of over 20 points (the only other Cris-produced show to go above 20 points was Amor Mio).

After the huge twist in the end of the first season, many fans of Federico didn't liked how the story went after his death and decided not to watch the show anymore. But the ratings for the second season didn't suffer because of that and the ratings stayed stable.

Floricienta was maybe bigger than Chiquititas and the concerts were so hard to get tickets that Floricienta had to do two concerts in Estadio Velez (capacity: 40,000) and 10 concerts at Luna Park (capacity: 8,000), besides concerts in Rosario and Mar del Plata.

The two Floricienta albums were also very successful with the first album being the best-seller album in Argentina in 2004 and the second repeating this in 2005.

Floricienta was also a huge phenomenon in other Latin-American countries like Peru, Venezuela, Bolivia and Uruguay. The show was also very big in Hungary, Spain and was one of the most popular shows in Disney Channel Mexico. The cast of the show made sold-out concerts in huge stadium across Latin America and in Tel-Aviv, in Israel.

Floricienta was the biggest kids show in the continent in 2004-2005 and a third season wasn't made because the star of the show, the charismatic Florencia Bertotti, didn't wanted to renew her contract.

The TV show ended with Floricienta marriage in front of a huge live audience.

The show had highly successful adaptations for Brazil, Portugal, Chile

Lola...Erase Una Vez

A Mexican version called Lola...Erase Una Vez produced by Rebelde director Pedro Damian, is expected to be as huge as Rebelde was. It is said Lola...Erase Una Vez is currently having a lot of sucess, and that it will overpass Floricienta.

Other shows

In 2005, Cris produced the highly-successful adult sitcom Amor Mio which was her highest-rated show in total number of viewers. Amor Mio was also adapted for Mexico's Televisa and is currently Mexico's highest-rated show. The Mexican version is shot in Argentina (similar to Chiquititas Brasil).

In 2006, Cris made Alma Pirata for Telefe. Alma Pirata, which included some of the hottest young actors in Argentina (all discovered by Morena) was expected to be the biggest success of the year but it had mixed-response and the ratings were less than expected. But it is the leader of its time-slot and its always above 15 point, so it can't be considered a flop.

For 2007, she plans another project with Amor Mio (her daughter Romina Yan and Damian Santos) stars about a family and a new kids show loosely based on Chiquititas (it was supposed to be a new season of Chiquititas, but because Chiquititas 2006 wasn't as successful as expected, Cris decided to made a new show loosely based on Chiquititas). Both shows will feature music. She also plan to release Benjamin Rojas as a singer.

The Mexican version of Floricienta will also premier in 2007 and between 2007-2008, a portuguese version of Rebelde Way will be released. She'll also release Alma Pirata in Spain, with Benjamin Rojas going to Madrid to promote it.

Chiquititas 2006 and Alma Pirata will premier in over 40 countries each.

Trivia

• Chiquititas was produced by Telefe. Rebelde Way was her first independent production and it was co-produced by Yair Dori.
• Cris Morena Group produced Rebelde Way, Rincon de Luz, FLoricienta, Alma Pirata, Amor Mio and Chiquititas 2006. A sitcom based on comic-strip Gaturro was supposed to premier in 2006, but it was cancelled.
• Cris Morena was married with Gustavo Yanklevich for over 20 years and he was one executive in Telefe until 2000. He founded his own production company RGB and he managed Argentina's most-successful girl-group Bandana (2001-2004) and Brazil's most popular girl-group Rouge, both discovered by the reality show Popstars (RGB had the rights for the show in Latin America). He also created successful reality show Escalera de la Fama and produced two of the most successful local pictures in the last few years: Chiquititas, la Pelicula (with Cris) (2000) and Bandana: Vivir Intentando. He also produced Erreway: Cuatro Caminos (with Cris Morena Group) and he co-produced every Cris show since 2004 (starting with Floricienta). Because RGB controls Disney Channel in Latin America, Floricienta and Chiquititas 2006 were show on the cable channel for the whole continent (Floricienta received Platinum certification in Mexico thanks to being shown in Disney Channel). He also controls Radio Disney Latin-America and produced the Brazilian version of Floricienta.
• Cris Morena composed the songs for Playhouse Disney Latin-America and Brasil.
• Romina Yan, Cris' daughter, starred in five Cris Morena productions: Jugate Conmigo, Quereme, Chiquititas, Amor Mio and Chiquititas, la Pelicula. She also presented Playhouse Disney and a soap produced by her father, Tus Ojos.
• Tomas Yanklevich, Cris' son, wrote Erreway and Bandana movies and Amor Mio.
• Cris Morena produced Bandana first concert at Gran Rex as a favor to her ex-husband.
• Cris is the composer with most titles registered in Argentina. Besides composing for her own production, she also wrote songs for many other Argentina's children shows (Mi Familia es un Dibujo, Cebollitas, Flavia Palmiero), variety shows (Videomatch, Ritmo de La Noche) and even for respected singers. She almost always write with her partner, Carlos (Rocky) Nilson and she was nominated for a Grammy Latino with the Floricienta albums.

External links

• Cris Morena at IMDb
• Cris Morena at Cinenacional.com (in Spanish)
• Cris Morena Teatro
• Cris Morena Fans Club Oficial "Los angeles de Cris