Comment
Borja R. Catela Madrid
Madrid
Updated Monday, February 26, 2024-21:26
The new century had not yet arrived when, on January 17, 1999, Telecinco premiered
7 Lives
, one of the first
sitcoms
broadcast in Spain that would become, until it was surpassed
Cuéntame how happened
, the longest-running weekly fiction series in Spanish television with 205 episodes.
To be exact,
204 chapters and a special episode
.
During its 15 seasons on broadcast until its end in 2006, it was a tremendous success with the public, with an average of 3,941,000 viewers, which rose to 4,803,000 in the tenth season and a 27.6% share, data that in Today no one can find it.
If there is a historical legacy that the Globomedia
series leaves behind,
it has been the impressive pool of actors that it has provided for national and international cinema, television and theater.
«We managed to bring together an extraordinary cast.
"Who was going to tell us now that we could have
Amparo Baró
,
Javier Cámara
,
Blanca Portillo
,
Gonzalo De Castro
,
Paz Vega
,
Guillermo Toledo
in the same series ...", lists the former casting director,
Luis San Narciso
, responsible for those signings that today are part of media stardom.
He discovered almost all of them in the theater, "the best of schools" for him: "That was an apprenticeship thanks to which they put into their pockets the audience that came every week to witness the live recording of the series," he says. .
San Narciso remembers “with nostalgia” the first time he saw
Carmen Machi
at the Teatro de la Abadía: “Her talent did not go unnoticed and this was demonstrated years later, when the
spin-off
of her character,
Aída
, was created and she was born. for the general public the great actress she is today.
The distribution of 7 lives, in 2003.GLOBOMEDIA / MEDIASET
The initial cast was, indeed, headed by
Amparo Baró
(who played
Sole
),
Javier Cámara
(
Paco
),
Toni Cantó
(
David
),
Blanca Portillo
(
Carlota
) and
Paz Vega
(
Laura
).
The plot revolved around the recovery of the character played by Cantó after 18 years in a coma and his adaptation to a society that he was completely unfamiliar with.
In the third chapter, the eponymous character of
Gonzalo de Castro
appeared , who was the waiter at
Casi-ke-No
, the neighborhood bar where everyone met, which as the seasons went by gained prominence.
Throughout the chapters, new characters were incorporated, such as
Richard
(played by
Willy Toledo
) in the third, or
Diana
(
Anabel Alonso
) in the fourth.
In that same season, the aforementioned
Aída
would arrive , who began as an employee of
Sole
's home , she established herself as a waitress and went down in television history as the protagonist of her own life.
In the year 2000, both
Gonzalo
and
Diana
stopped being secondary characters to remain permanent characters with their own stories and plots.
Along the way, Toni Cantó
or
Paz Vega
had left
, who decided to embark on other career paths and went on to become movie stars or politicians.
Between seasons 6 and 9, the characters of
Eva Santolaria
(
Vero
) would arrive, who would be in the series until almost the end;
Florentino Fernández
(
Félix ), who arrived in season 8 to play
Sole
's son
and
Paco
's brother , but, curiously, had already appeared in the sixth as
Pepe
, a friend of
Javier Cámara
's character ...
Pau Durá
, who He gave life to
Álex
,
Paco
's half-brother , the result of an affair with his father;
and
Marina Gatell
, who was
Esther
, a former classmate of
Carlota's
.
Later, another of the most remembered characters joined, the fruit seller (
Santi Rodríguez
), who was joined by the return of
Willy Toledo
and the additions of
Santi Millán
(
Sergio
) and
María Pujalte
(
Mónica
).
In the last season, broadcast between January and April 2006, the only actress who remained from the original cast was
Amparo Baró
.
In total, there were 20 actors who starred in the main plots of
7 Lives
, but they were surrounded by a multitude of secondary actors who helped give depth to their stories.
The cast of the last season of 7 lives, in 2006.GLOBOMEDIA / MEDIASET
Fiction served to catapult performers such as
Paz Vega
or
Javier Cámara
to fame , discover
Carmen Machi
,
Gonzalo de Castro
or
Anabel Alonso
;
and make the audience forget about Valle in
Compañeros
to place
Eva Santolaria
in a different role as Vero.
That pioneering series in so many things was also recorded with an audience as if it were a theater.
The actors started each episode with a greeting to the respectable person.
To celebrate the broadcast of episode 200, on March 12, 2006,
Telecinco
held a special live broadcast in which the original cast joined the cast from the last season and achieved
almost 5,600,000 viewers and a 30% screen share.
, dizzying figures in the current panorama.
The fiction created by
Víctor García
and
José Camacho
was pioneering from its headlining tune.
For the first time in Spain, it was a well-known artist who composed and performed it, and that opened a new world of possibilities for television.
In the first seasons, Emilio Aragón
himself
, author of the theme, was the one who performed it personally.
With the new century, starting in 2000, a version by
Raimundo Amador
was played , and in 2004. In 2004
El Canto del Loco
took over until the last chapter.
Nor did he spare
7 Lives
, following in the wake of
Farmacia de Guardia
, in cameos by famous people.
Some played themselves, from singers like
Shakira
or
Raphael
to athletes such as
Ronaldo Nazario
,
Samuel Eto'o
,
Iker Casillas
or
Fernando Torres
.
María Teresa Campos
,
Pepe Domingo Castaño
,
Carlos Herrera
,
Jesús Hermida
and
Mercedes Milá
did not miss the opportunity to step on that set either, not to mention politicians like
Santiago Carrillo
,
Alfonso Guerra
,
Josep Piqué
or
Josep Lluís Carod-Rovira
.
Presenters such as
Carlos Sobera
,
Pablo Motos
,
Anne Igartiburu
,
Santiago Segura
,
Constantino Romero
and
Belén Rueda
also interacted with the characters of
7 Lives
in episodes that have remained for the annals of television.