Love & Faithful Coincidence @ Univision’s ‘La Otra’.

They are not long lost twins. In fact, they have no relation whatsoever, and they have never even met. Yet Carlota and Cordelia are practically mirror images of each other. This incredible coincidence has momentous consequences for Alvaro, the principal figure in the unusual love story La Otra (The Other Woman). Univision Network will premiere this enthralling novela on Monday, October 14, 2002 at 2:00 p.m./1:00 p.m. Central. It will air Monday through Friday, 2-3 p.m./1-2 p.m. Central.

Produced by Televisa’s renowned “master of the novela,” Ernesto Alonso, and featuring a great cast that includes famous heartthrob Juan Soler, veteran actress Jacqueline Andere, and talented newcomer Yadhira Carrillo in a challenging dual role as Carlota and Cordelia, La Otra has been a phenomenal hit in Mexico. It promises to repeat that success among Hispanic viewers in the U.S.

THE STORY

Carlota Guillen grew up in the small town of Querétaro with her mother, Bernarda (Jacqueline Andere) and her sister Eugenia (Mercedes Molto). There, Bernarda is thought to be a respectable widow; but many miles away in Guadalajara, she is known as the mistress of the wealthiest man in town, who fathered her two illegitimate daughters.

Bernarda is determined to keep her daughters away from men, as she knows that the day they marry she will be forced to give them the fortune they inherited from their father, which she has been managing since his death. No matter how hard she tries, however, Bernarda cannot prevent Carlota and Eugenia from falling in love. Eugenia becomes pregnant, while Carlota finds the man of her dreams in Alvaro Ibáñez (Juan Soler), a young doctor doing post-graduate work in town. When Eugenia dies in childbirth, the greedy Bernarda tells Alvaro it was Carlota who died. Not knowing that Carlota had a sister, he believes the story and flees, brokenhearted, to his family’s ranch in Morelia.

It is there that real trouble begins for the noble Alvaro. Still grieving for Carlota, he meets Cordelia Portugal, a woman who, mysteriously, looks exactly like his first love. Feeling that it is a matter of fate, Alvaro marries Cordelia, only to find that inside, she is the total opposite of her lookalike-cold, wicked and scheming. It will take ten years of unhappiness with Cordelia for Alvaro to discover that Carlota’s death was a cruel lie invented by her mother. Will it be too late for Alvaro and Carlota to recover their love?