‘I am Betty the Ugly one’ is, without a doubt, one of the most important television productions in the country and although more than 20 years have passed since its launch, today it continues to be one of the most watched soap operas, even on digital platforms. Since then, new versions have emerged for different countries, it had a spin-off, a play and even an animated version. Some details of what happened during the recordings of the acclaimed novel are still known today.
The Colombian telenovela that was written by Fernando Gaitán became a worldwide hit, becoming included in the Guinness Records list as the most successful telenovela in history and the most adapted in the world. Its premiere took place on October 25, 1999 and ended on May 8, 2001 and had a great cast in which they stood out Ana Maria Orozco (Betty) Jorge Enrique Abello (Armando Mendoza), Natalia Ramirez (Marcela Valencia), Lorna Peace (Patricia Fernandez), Julian Arango (Hugo Lombardi), among many others, including the French Patrick Delmas, who played Michel Doinel.
It was the French actor who gave life to one of the most beloved characters in the telenovela and that for many users on social networks and even for the actor himself Jorge Enrique Abello (Armando Mendoza) should have ended at the end of the telenovela along with Betty and recently it was learned that he himself proposed this possibility to Fernando Gaitán.
“They were going to lynch me. people were so angry because of how I had behaved with Betty, So I went to Fernando’s office and told him ‘let him go with the Frenchman, he’s perfect, he’s blond, slim, he loves her. If I go out on the street they lynch me’”, Abello assured.
Patrick Delmas, who gave life to the French businessman Michel Doinel, recently revealed a situation that could have changed the soap opera. In ‘The Laura Acuña Room’, The renowned actor revealed that he was very close to rejecting the role in ‘I am Betty La Fea’, because at that time they were calling him to make a movie in his native country and due to some errands he had to carry out.
“At the same time they called me to make a film in France without casting, so I would go back and do some sort of laps. At first for ‘Betty’ there were 4 chapters, I almost said no because I was doing my return with France ”, Patrick Delmas stated.
Finally, he decided to accept the proposal to be part of the cast of ‘I am Betty La Fea’ and stressed that, at that time, “I enter Betty, out of four chapters I don’t know how much I did at the end, but the character hit a lot (…) coincided with my ex’s pregnancy. I went to see Fernando Gaitán and I told him, ‘look, I wish I didn’t have to go back to France, but I want to stay here, so if there is more work here it works for me and he said ‘I’ll call you in two months’, I He called, told me that there was a project called ‘Isabel watched over me’, there is a role that might interest you and I said yes and from there I haven’t stopped and then they called me from France and I was always busy”.
Patrick Delmas showed himself relieved of having accepted the role that changed his life and was able to participate in one of the most important telenovelas in the history of Colombian television and that had enormous international repercussions. Recently, the Hollywood actress, elizabeth olsenassured that he saw the original telenovela by Fernando Gaitán and even represented it in a play.
“We did ‘Ugly Betty’ before ‘Ugly Betty’ was an American show. My friends and I would watch ‘Ugly Betty’ on TV and pretend to translate it, so we created a whole ‘Ugly Betty’ musical in Spanish class.” assured the renowned actress.
