Los ricos también lloran ("The Rich Also Cry") is a telenovela produced in Mexico in 1979, starring Verónica Castro and Rogelio Guerra.
Mariana Villareal (Castro) finds herself homeless after her father dies and her stepmother takes over their hacienda. She escapes to Mexico City, where Don Alberto Salvatierra, a millionaire, ends up taking care of the young girl. Don Alberto takes pride in educating the girl but his own son Luis Alberto, a womanizer, tries to seduce her; the father orders him to stay away from her. Esther, Luis Alberto's cousin, moves into the Salvatierra mansion with the hopes of marrying him. Luis Alberto finds Mariana's charm to be the reason for him to change and falls in love with her.
María la del barrio is essentially a Remake of this, with some alterations. In 2022, TelevisaUnivision produced a reboot of the series as part of their Fábrica de sueños franchise which revolves around telenovela classics from the 80s and 90s.
Los ricos también lloran contains examples of:
- '80s Hair: While the telenovela was from 1979, Mariana's hairstyles were already thumbing their noses at gravity.
- The Alcoholic: Mariana's father Leonardo took refuge in the bottle ever since the death of Mariana's mother.
- Beautiful All Along: Mariana isn't by any stretch ugly, but she is given lessons in etiquette and language to turn her from a simple country girl into a Proper Lady.
- Break the Cutie: Most of the show consisted of bad things happening to either Mariana or her children.
- Break the Haughty: Wondering about Mariana's constant activities in the street and her sudden and unexplained happiness, Marisabel discovered her meeting with Beto, and heard her talking nice with him. She was sure that Mariana was cheating Luis Alberto with her, and became a complete Jerkass. And one day, she took things too far, so that Mariana told her the truth. The COMPLETE truth. That Luis Alberto left her during pregnancy, that his request for divoce drove her nuts, that she had her son then, that she gave him away to another woman during her madness, that she was placed into a bedlam house, that she spent more than 15 years searching for that woman, that she finally found her, and that Beto is her son. Marisabel started to cry, asking Mariana to forgive her.
- Contrived Coincidence: The way Mariana ran into Beto, the son that she had abandoned shortly after she gave birth.
- "Do It Yourself" Theme Tune: Verónica Castro sang the telenovela's theme song "Aprendí a llorar" ("I learned to cry").
- Dramatic Irony: Esther fakes a pregnancy to get married to Luis Alberto, but later gets pregnant for real from her lover Diego, and ends up dying of complications with her pregnancy.
- Fake Pregnancy: Esther pulls this on Luis Alberto to marry him. After they marry, she simply fakes having a miscarriage.
- Fish out of Water: Mariana in the Salvatierra household, at first.
- May–December Romance: Luis Alberto mistakenly assumed that the young Beto was Mariana's lover before he knew better.
- Rags to Riches: Mariana starts off in the series as a destitute orphan girl and eventually becomes a wealthy lady.
- Relationship Upgrade: Luis Alberto and Mariana get married about halfway into the series.
- The Remake: Televisa Univision produced a remake of the series in 2022, being the fourth series in their Fábrica de sueños franchise. It stars Claudia Martin and Sebastián Rulli as the main couple. In a change from the original, Esther was renamed to Soraya Montenegro as a reference to the infamous villainess from María la del barrio, which was this novela's '90s remake.
- Wicked Stepmother: Mariana's stepmother Irma, who kicked Mariana out of her estate the moment her father Leonardo died.
