Cris Morena

Biography

María Cristina De Giacomi (born 23 August 1956), professionally known as Cris Morena, is an Argentine Award-winning television producer, actress, television presenter, composer, musician, songwriter, writer, former fashion model and CEO of Cris Morena Group. She is one of the most successful producers in the country and is the creator of Argentina's most successful youth-oriented shows such as Jugate Conmigo, Chiquititas, Rebelde Way, Floricienta, Alma Pirata, and Casi Ángeles. She was a producer at Telefe from 1991 to 2001, then created the Cris Morena Group as an independent production company, with Rebelde Way (2002) as its first production. Morena is the mother of actress Romina Yan and of producer and director Tomás Yankelevich. After a long break from the industry, Cris Morena announced two new projects for streaming service Max: Te quiero y me duele (2023), inspired by a song for her deceased daughter, Romina and Margarita, a spin-off of Floricienta.

== Early life and career == Morena was born María Cristina De Giacomi in Buenos Aires, Argentina. She is the youngest of four siblings and grew up in Palermo, Buenos Aires neighborhood with her upper-class family. Her father was an engineer and her mother was a sociologist. She studied at a traditional private religious school. When she was 17, she started working as a fashion model and became the popular face for Lee Jeans in the country. While she was modeling, she also studied social assistance in university and militated alongside Padre Carlos Mugica during the dictatorship in Argentina. When she was 17 years old, she was selected to host the youth-oriented show Voltop. While working on the program, she met Gustavo Yankelevich, which was part of the staff, and they fell in love. In 1974, Morena and Gustavo married and, after giving birth to Romina and Tomás, Morena decided to retire so she could fully dedicate herself to her family. After a few years, however, she returned to work when her husband was unable to find a job due to discriminating policies against Jews implemented by the Argentine dictatorship. She soon got a job at a telenovela called Dulce Fugitiva in 1979 playing Laura Moreno. Afterwards, she decided to adopt Laura's last name as her artistic name and became Cris Morena. In 1980 Morena, who was already a pianist and wrote poems as a hobby, decided to start writing music. To this day she is one of the most successful songwriters in Argentina and the one who has made most money in copyrights and albums sales in SADAIC's history (Argentina's songwriters association) alongside her former songwriting partner Carlos Nilson (the two parted ways in 2007). In 1984, she was one of the stars of iconic comedy show Mesa de Noticias. From 1990 to 1991, she also had a starring role in Amigos son los Amigos. Morena retired as an actress after starring in the telenovela Quereme in 1994. In 1995, she also retired as a host and as a TV personality and became a full-time producer and songwriter. In a talk for TEA Imagen students, she revealed she believed her successful past in acting was due to her charisma, not her acting skills since, in her opinion, she was never a particularly good actress. Until 1991, she was mostly known as an actress due to her role in iconic comedy shows such as Mesa de Noticias and Amigos son los Amigos and as a songwriter, thanks to the hits she wrote for children show host Flavia Palmiero alongside Carlos Nilson. In 1991, she made her debut as a powerful name in TV production when she created, presented and produced Jugate Conmigo. She went on to create the biggest youth-oriented franchises in Argentina history and her shows, such as Chiquititas, Rebelde Way and Floricienta, attracted huge ratings all over the world and spawned hundreds of products, albums and live concerts. Even though most of her shows were heavily panned by critics, most of them were huge commercial successes and had huge repercussion not only in Argentina but also in several other countries such as Brazil, Greece, Israel, Spain, Uruguay, Mexico and Chile. In 1995, she retired as a TV personality when she ended her successful Jugate Conmigo series. Since then, she has worked behind-the-scenes, both as a TV producer and as songwriter. Even though she is not usually seen on the media, she is a well-known and recognizable brand in Argentina, where she is considered one of the most powerful names in television. She is also a prolific songwriter and music is an important element in all of her shows. Her productions have accumulated over 30 platinum certifications and, alongside Carlos Nilson (her songwriting partner until 2006), she is the most profitable songwriter ever in SADAIC's (Argentine songwriters association) history. A huge fan of Broadway musicals, Morena is also known for musicals with million dollar budgets based on her television production which are usually presented in Teatro Gran Rex in Buenos Aires. With the complete cast of the TV shows, those musicals break attendance records every Winter vacation (July in Argentina). Chiquititas alone has sold 1.5 million tickets. She was also responsible for the Argentine version of Spring Awakening in 2010 for which she was awarded several Premios ACE, the most prestigious theater award the country. In 2010, after the sudden death of her daughter, Romina Yan, Morena went on a hiatus and closed her production company. She gave her last interview at the end of the year for Clarín and has made no public appearances. In November 2012, she made her comeback at the Grammy Latino red carpet and announced her return to television after two years, with Aliados. Aliados made its debut at the last week of June in Telefe.

=== Family === Morena married Gustavo Yankelevich in December 1974. Her husband became the producer of some of the biggest hits in the country, including Mesa de Noticias, and, in 1989, he became director of Telefe and, under his leadership, the channel became Argentina's most-watched TV channel. He was directly or indirectly responsible for some of Argentina's biggest television shows including Susana Giménez, Showmatch, among many others. He left the channel in 1999 and, in the following year, founded his own production company, RGB Entertainment. In 2002, so she could produce Rebelde Way, Morena also founded her own company, Cris Morena Group. From Floricienta in 2004 until Casi Angeles in 2010, RGB was a co-producer of all CMG ventures. Despite being associates and business partners, Morena and Gustavo have been divorced since 1996. Their two children, Romina Yan, who died in 2010, and Tomás Yankelevich, were both involved in show business. Romina was an actress. She started her career as one of the co-hosts in Jugate Conmigo and became extremely popular playing Belén, the central figure in her mother's hugely successful children-oriented telenovela Chiquititas, in which she starred from '95 to '98. She also starred as Belén in the movie Chiquititas: Rincón de luz in 2001. With her mother, she did Jugate Conmigo (1991–1993), Chiquititas (1995–1998), Amor Mío (2005) and B&B: Bella y Bestia (2008). Both Amor Mio and B&B were also co-produced by her father which also chose her as host in Playhouse Disney (2001–2003) and as the lead in Abra tus Ojos (2003). She co-created Amor Mío, her biggest hit since Chiquititas, with her mother and the show was co-produced by her father and directed by Tomás, her brother. Romina died from a sudden heart attack on 28 September 2010 when she was 36. She had three kids. As an honor to Gustavo Yanklevich's contribution to the channel, Telefe suspended all of its primetime shows on the day of her death to air a tribute to Romina. Marcelo Tinelli, host of Argentina's highest-rated show, also canceled his Showmatch show for the day in respect (Gustavo is Tinelli's mentor). Later, named his TV studio after Romina and also opened a pediatric hospital in her name. The day of her death, all four TV channels in Argentina suspended their primetime shows to air tributes and the news shows attracted the biggest audience of the year, with Telefe and Canal 13 reaching a combined 40 points of ratings during their primetime newscasts. After the shock of Romina's death, Morena announced a hiatus from TV production, closing down her production company for two years. Tomás attended University of Southern California film school. He worked at both RGB and Cris Morena Group and, in 2011, opened his own production company, Utopia. He was the director of Bandana's feature film Vivir Intentando and directed several episodes of Amor Mío and B&B: Bella y Bestia. In 2011, he opened his own production company, Utopia, and filled the void left by his mother's hiatus with the kids-oriented fiction show, Supertorpe, which aired in Disney Channel Latin America and Telefe. Although Morena's involvement was kept to a minimum, the show starred Candela Vetrano and Pablo Martinez — both discovered by Morena — and she contributed songs to its soundtrack. Even though the show achieved some success — spawning a live musical and winning a Martin Fierro award — it could not reach the level of success achieved by his mother's shows and only lasted one season. Tomás also co-produced, alongside RGB, the Telefe primetime soap Cuando Me Sonreis starring Facundo Arana, Julieta Diaz and Morena's discoveries Benjamín Rojas and Lali Esposito. In February 2011, it was announced that Tomás would become the new Telefe director, a position held by his father from 1989 to 1999. As of 2013, Tomás is still in charge of the channel, helping Telefe to become once again the ratings' leader after losing the top spot for two years, in 2010 and 2011, to Canal 13. Morena has five grandchildren: Valentín, Franco and Azul, from Romina's marriage with Darío Giordano; Inti and Mila, from Tomás marriage to Sofia Recca. Four characters in her new song, Aliados, are named after them.

== Composer == Although Morena is an extremely successful TV producer and businesswoman, she claims she is first and foremost a songwriter. Since the 1970s, she has composed for several of Argentina's and Latin America's biggest artists. She is the lyricist of almost every single song in her productions, totaling over 600 songs. Music is a huge part of her shows and soundtrack CDs being released yearly. Her productions garnered over 30 platinum records from Chiquititas, Verano del '98, Jugate Conmigo, Rebelde Way, Floricienta, Casi Ángeles, among others. During the 1990s, Morena, alongside Nilson, was responsible for the music in most Telefe's shows, including Brigada Cola, Ritmo de la Noche, Videomatch, Cebollitas (97–98) and Dibu: Mi Família es un Dibujo and also for all Telefe's advertising campaigns and jingles. Before she started writing music for her own youth-oriented shows, she was, alongside Carlos "Rocky" Nilson, responsible for the music in Flavia Palmiero's children show. Morena and Nilson are the composers who made the most money in SADAIC's (Argentina's songwriters association) history. She and Carlos Nilson parted ways in 2007 when he went to work at Ideas del Sur. During her hiatus as a TV producer, Morena continued writing songs. She contributed a few songs to Telefe's children show Supertorpe in 2011, for Teen Angels' fourth studio album and for Rebelde Way's Brazilian remake. Like she did in the 90s, Cris' has collaborated songs to Telefe's shows and campaigns since Tomás, her son, being named the channel's director. She composed the channel's official theme, Todos Juntos, and also contributed songs to Qitapenas, a musical comedy produced by the channel.

== Producer ==

=== Jugate Conmigo ===

After two important and memorable roles on television, Morena decided to give production a try. The result was Jugate Conmigo, which debuted in 1991 and was aired at weekdays during the 6 p.m. slot at Telefe. The show concept was a mix of game show and variety show targeted to teenagers. Morena was the main host and the rest of the cast consisted of a group of ten very know teenagers, five of each sex. The show was taped in front of a live audience formed by tweens and teens. The main part of the show was the games with huge prizes that were played by the audience and the young cast members themselves. It also had sketches, musical segments and celebrity guests. The show also featured original music. Every year, a new CD was released with about 10 new songs sung by the cast. They sang about teen issues such as gossip, jealously, love, first sexual experiences, kisses and friends. All the songs were composed by Morena herself alongside her songwriting partner Carlos Nilson. Soon after its debut, the show became a huge sensation and the teenagers who formed the cast became overnight teen idols. They held concerts at Estadio Obras in 1992 and at Teatro Gran Rex in 1994. The show also spawned four album, all of them certified Platinum. In 1992, Juntos, the second season album, was the 8th best-seller of the year. In both 1993 and 1994, Jugate Conmigo soundtracks were the best-selling albums in the country according to CAPIF, with Abrazadissimos and Rejugadisimos respectively. Alongside the teens from the first two seasons of Jugate, Morena starred in the prime-time series Quereme. The show did not perform as well as the channel had hoped and was canceled. It was Morena's last venture as an actress. During the third season of Jugate, a segment of the show was dedicated to weekly telenovelas starring members of the cast. It was Cris' first steps towards producing fiction. Life College was a telenovela that aired inside the fourth season of Jugate Conmigo following teenagers living in an elite boarding school. The plot of the show was similar to Cris' future hit Rebelde Way (2002). Given the program's impact and huge audience, both Cris and the network decided to revamp the format, transforming it into a family program from the fifth season onwards.Thus, it was renamed "Jugate con Todo", no longer being shown during the week, becoming weekly and moving to prime time on Sundays.The show would become the centerpiece of Telefe's Sunday schedule, replacing the extremely successful Marcelo Tinelli's Ritmo de la Noche. The show was co-hosted by Morena and Manuel Wirtz and was not well received, which prompted the show to change its time slot, co-host and its format which became increasingly similar to the original Jugate format. Jugate con Todo lasted only five months due a very low ratings.The last program aired on the eve of the premiere of Chiquititas, so part of the soap opera's cast was present during the recordings. It was the first of many Cris-produced shows to be commercial successes but, at the same time, heavily panned by critics. At the time, she was criticized for acting like a teenager when she was over 30 years old. Even though the first version of the show was huge hit with the audience and sell millions of albums and merchandising, many critics declared the show was only aired because Morena was the wife of Telefe's CEO. Even though it was not praised by critics at the time, Jugate Conmigo is one of the most remembered shows of the early 1990s and the songs marked a generation. Jugate was also the TV debut for, among others, her daughter Romina Yan, Michel Brown and Luciano Castro.

=== Chiquititas ===