The famous comic character of haydee padillathe beautiful chona, was born almost overnight. Or rather, he was born one night, more precisely in February 1973, when Hugo and Gerardo Sofovich made him a proposal.
He had finished shooting the film with them The Knights of the Round Bedplayed by Negro Olmedo and Gordo Porcel, and a hotel café told him: “On Tuesday we went out with At lunch with La Chona”.
His answer was: “They are crazy”, but they left him no choice: “We start on Tuesday”, they repeated. And they did it: on Tuesday, February 15, 1973, La Chona opened his door for the first time.
a real milestone
As he recalled years later: “We went live, I put on some aunt’s shoes that were from a wedding dress, and one of my first guests was Antonio Gasalla. The next day, when I arrived at the channel, they told me that he had had a brutal evaluation. I have good memories and I was very happy to do that program.
It was a national landmark, thanks to her tenderness, irreverence, crooked false teeth and charming smile. Haydee Padilla had a brilliant moment of glory in the history of Argentine television, with a successful parody of Mirtha Legrand’s lunch, drinking mate and chatting with famous guests.
La Chona was a neighborhood woman, brutal but lovable, like a counterpart to Juan Carlos Altavista’s Minguito.. In those days she also recorded an album in which she sang in her character’s voice.
Another piece of information: the story goes that in late ’72 Chiqui had a bruised lunch that led her to leave Canale 9. An on-air discussion with heart surgeon Miguel Bellizi on the question of whether the right thing to say was “Peronism” or ” justicialismo” and a confrontation in court with Alejandro Romay, marked a tumultuous exit. In ’73 Mirtha goes on Canale 13. For the competition, in ’11, she lands La Chona.
A politicized rearrangement
For years, Haydee Padilla revived the character in one-man shows and commercials, but in 2010, at the age of 74, she filmed a pilot for a new version of Lunch with Chona, an idea of Kirchnerism to compete with Mirtha Legrand and her anti-government views.
The program had Osvaldo Papaleo as guests; the Secretary of Culture of the Nation Jorge Coscia; actress Laura Azcurra and journalist Camilo García. Monitoring and closely following every minute was the chairman of the board of the Federal Authority for Audiovisual Communication Services (AFCA), Gabriel Mariotto.
The production was by La Corte, the producer of the brothers Pablo and Daniel Monzoncillo, the one in charge of broadcasting the Football for everyone and of each of the events of the Presidency of the Nation in those years.
Padilla performed his character with all its splendour. The setting was the dining room of an old block of flats. The script was extremely simple: before receiving her guests, La Chona would go through the Central Market and buy everything she needed for the main course: a classic puchero. First a hearty snack and a very bourgeois table.
mfb
Source: Clarin
