Salsa e Merengue is a Brazilian telenovela produced and broadcast at the 7pm timeslot by TV Globo, from September 30, 1996 to May 2, 1997, in 185 episodes.
It is written by Miguel Falabella and Maria Carmem Barbosa, with text supervision of Gilberto Braga and directed by Wolf Maya.
The telenovela stars Patrícia França, Marcos Palmeira, Marcello Antony, Débora Bloch, Victor Fasano, Laura Cardoso, Arlete Salles, Bia Nunnes, José D'Artagnan Júnior, Rosamaria Murtinho, Walmor Chagas and Cristiana Oliveira in the main roles.
Contents
Plot
A rich woman named Bárbara gives birth to a dead child, however without her knowledge, her husband Guilherme exchanges the child's body for a baby whose mother is poor and cannot afford to raise the child. 30 years later, Eugênio, the exchanged child, develops leukemia and is in need of an urgent marrow transplant. The donation of a blood relative is required for the surgery and with the risk of his son dying, Guilherme tells Bárbara about the exchange. The two go in search of Anabel Muñoz, Eugênio’s birth mother.
Anabel never told anyone about the pregnancy, but never forgot the son she had with Urbano. Anabel later met her late husband Félix Munõz, with whom she had five other children: Valentim, Remédios, Amparo, Assunção, and Antônio. With Eugênio’s reappearance in her life, Anabel is forced reveal the truth. Eugênio, who thought he was the son of millionaires, discovers that his real family is poor. The tests show that Anabel’s bone marrow is incompatible with Eugênio. Because of this, Anabel reveals another secret: Valentim is also Urbano's son. Valentim is faced with the situation of having to donate bone marrow for a brother he doesn’t know. To make matters worse, Eugene and Valentim fall in love with the same woman, Madalena.
Cast
Patrícia França as Madalena Sobral
Marcos Palmeira as Valentim Muñoz
Marcello Antony as Eugênio Amarante Paes
Cristiana Oliveira as Adriana Campos Queiroz
Arlete Salles as Anabel Muñoz
Zezé Polessa as Marinelza Bolla
Laura Cardoso as Ruth Campos Queiroz
Cláudio Cavalcanti as Dr. Olavo
Ariclê Perez as Gilda Campos Queiroz
Bia Nunnes as Remédios Muñoz
Thaís de Campos as Amparo Muñoz
Gabriela Alves as Assunção Muñoz
Diogo Vilela as Caio Graco Leão
Rosi Campos as Dayse Menezes
André Gonçalves as Walter
Maria Maya as Caroline "Kelly" Bolla
Juliana Baroni as Inês Soares da Cunha
Ricardo Petraglia as Tito Soares da Cunha
Mônica Torres as Lídia
Jacqueline Laurence as Eglantine Billard
Stella Miranda as Maria do Socorro
Marcos Oliveira as Cândido "Candinho"
Special guest stars
Rosamaria Murtinho as Bárbara Amarante Paes
Walmor Chagas as Guilherme Amarante Paes
Oswaldo Loureiro as Walmir Bolla
Production
Salsa e Merengue is the first telenovela written by the duo Maria Carmem Barbosa and Miguel Falabella. In order to be able to write the telenovela with ease, Falabella took a month's leave from the comedy show Sai de Baixo. The telenovela had around forty scenes shot in Miami, with the cost of filming being around 300 thousand dollars.
In the first few weeks, the telenovela aired a topless scene at 7 pm. The scene was made at the request of the production team.
The opening credits sequence showed people dancing to the rhythm of salsa and merengue, to the song María by Ricky Martin, which was a hit at the time. Meanwhile, a complementary soundtrack, Bailando Salsa e Merengue, was released containing the songs featured in the telenovela.