Mi Gorda Bella

Characters

Valentina and Orestes - They are cousins who fall in love when Valentina comes to live in Orestes' house once she graduates from High School. The house that they live in is rightfully Valentina's. Her mother and father owned it - but they were both secretly killed by Olimpia. They are the main characters of the show - Valentina is an overweight girl and Orestes is the perfect man.

Olimpia Mercouri de Villanueva Main Villain - mother of Orestes. She's a bad woman who has fooled her husband and children to think she's a good mother and wife. She hates Valentina - and placed into doubt Orestes' real father. (Valentina and Orestes end up not being related at all)

Juan Angel Villanueva - he's Olimpia's husband, father to Orestes, Pandora, Ariadna and Aquiles. He's brother to Valentina's dead father Luis Felipe (Luis Felipe was killed by Olimpia, his sister in-law). So he's Valentina's uncle. He loves his niece and his children but he's been such a busy man that he's failed to see Olimpia's true face. Recently he's realized that Tza Tza "SaSa" has been in love with him all of her life.

Tza Tza "Sasa" Lanz - she's Valentina's aunt, her sister Eva Lanz was killed by Olimpia. She's a very loving person whose only family is Valentina and she'll do anything for her. She owns "la pension" - it's a large modest home that has over 5 rooms. She rents them out but she's so nice she takes in people who can't pay and finds herself in financial debt.

Franklin Carreño - he's an honest cop who fell in love with Valentina from the moment he first met her. He sees her inner goodness and he gets very upset when people try to take advantage of her sweetness. He's suspected for a while that Orestes might feel more for Valentina than mere friendship. He agrees to date Valentina at her request so people would stop teasing her about being in love with Orestes. While in their fake relationship, he really falls in love with her and breaks it off when he knows he's being used. Still, he defends Valentina. One drunk night ends him in bed with Chiqui - that will begin their relationship. He's also investigating Eva's death (Valentina's mother).

Chiquinquirá "Chiqui" Lorenz Rivero de Villanueva Villain - she's Orestes girlfriend and best friend to Ariadna. She's beautiful, rich, arrogant and completely in love with Orestes. Upset at Valentina for taking Orestes away she gets seriously drunk and ends up bed with Franklin. This starts her metamorphosis and her romance with Franklin. Her parents are Lorenzo Lorenz and Carmela "Muñeca ” Lorenz - recently she found out that her mother who is good and honest is not really her mother and she's a product of an affair her father had and "Muñeca” adopted her as her own daughter.

Pandora Villanueva Mercouri - she's the third child of Olimpia & Juan Angel. She's very close to Aquiles, her brother. Pandora saw at the age of 6 her mother kill her uncle Luis Felipe and that has traumatized her. She has 'episodes' of lunacy where she starts screaming and struggling. For this reason she's considered the weird one in the family. She thinks she's doomed to suffer in life and never find happiness because she let her uncle get killed. This all changes when she meets and falls in love with the honest cop Jordi - much to her mother's distaste.

Jordi Rosales - he is Frankin's partner and best friend. He's honest and has no problem telling it like it is. He first sees Pandora when he came to her house with Franklin searching for Valentina. Quickly, he falls in love with her and comes on to her - she thinks he's tasteless and common and quickly gives him the cold shoulder. With all of the problems her brother gets into in the beginning of the novela she often turns to him until he kisses her one day. She denies their love for a while but he convinces her to let him into her heart.

Aquiles Villanueva Mercouri - he's the youngest of the Villanuevas. In the beginning of the novela he's very much a loner and very close with his older sister Pandora. Because he's never had a girlfriend everyone think he's gay; he's even confused himself. When he gets into a fight in school he's expelled, consequentially he's thrown out from his house. Homeless and wandering his only hope lies in his sister who worries sick for him and in Valentina- the cousin he loves a lot. Tza Tza offers him a home with her and Valentina in "La Pension" - there he confesses to Valentina that when he was 11 his mother took him to a prostitute and that's traumatized him with women. He runs away in shame from Valentina and he's found days later unconscious. When he wakes up he has no memory of the last year and under his mother's instigations he's led to believe that Valentina is a bad person and he also believes Fabiola to be his girlfriend but it all changes when he starts seeing Ninfa - their maid in a whole new light.

Beatriz Teresa Carreño “Bea” - she's Franklin's younger sister. She's brave, honest and with Ninfa Valentina's best friend. She's a very humble girl and she adores her 'madrina' Tza Tza. Often she defends Valentina to the people that tease her; then ,first, she was in love with Jordi,but later falls in love with Orestes' best friend Alejandro who never notices she's alive until she becomes a make-up artist for the company and she becomes the only person he can trust.

India

Dekho Magar Pyaar Se (2004) - Just as India was the first country to adapt Yo soy Betty, la fea, they also had the first adaptation of Mi Gorda Bella. This romantic comedy focused on a full-figured girl named Nikita Sareen (played by Shweta Agarwal, and later by Shraddha Nigam), who was loved by almost everyone who knew her. Young Nikita turned to food for comfort after she was exiled to a boarding school at an early age. Just when it seemed that fate was about to smile on her, tragedy took her mother's life, so Nikki was forced to live under the same roof with her uncle's menacing wife, Devyani (Reena Wadhwa), who tried everything in her power to rob Nikki of her inheritance. Nikki had two great loves during the course of the series: Karan (Keith Sequeira) and Arjun (Kushal Punjabi).

Malaysia

Manjalara (2007) - After Malaysians were seduced by the beautiful fat Valentina and her antics in Mi Gorda Bella, a private television station decided to buy the rights from Venezuela's RCTV to produce a local-flavored version of the telenovela called Manjalara. Using the same format, but with a few alterations to suit Malaysian cultural sensitivity, the 75-episode serial was shown every Monday to Thursday at 6.30 p.m. on TV3. The series starred Jehan Miskin, Emelda Rosmila as Manjalara, Sheila Rusly, Mustapha Kamal and former national gymnast Raja Farah.

Mexico

Llena de amor (2010) - The Mexican remake premiered on May 3, 2010 in Mexico (August 9, 2010 on Univision in the U.S.) and is produced by Televisa. This adaptation stars Ariadne Díaz (Marianela Ruiz y de Teresa Pavón / Victoria de la Garza Montiel), Valentino Lanus (Emmanuel Ruiz y de Teresa Curiel / Emmanuel Sevilla Pérez "Lirio de Plata Jr."), Azela Robinson (Fedra Curiel de Ruiz y de Teresa / Juana Felipa Pérez Fernández de Sevilla), Laura Flores (Ernestina "Netty" Pavón Romero), César Évora (Emiliano Ruiz y de Teresa), Alexis Ayala (Lorenzo Porta-Lopez), and Cecilia Gabriela (Camila "Muñeca" Rivero de Porta-Lopez)

Songs

Theme song

Other songs

Hilda Aguilera comes out in this has a deep conversation that is recognized has an intellectual person.