La Madrastra (lit: The Stepmother) is a Chilean television soap opera created by Arturo Moya Grau, that aired on Canal 13 from April 21, to September 18, 1981, starring Jael Unger and Walter Kliche. The series, set in Los Angeles and Santiago between 1961 and 1981, depicts the memoirs of Marcia Espínola, an innocent woman accused of murder in America, twenty years later, she is freed from prison, returning to Chile for revenge, and to see her children as their stepmother. La Madrastra having achieved both wide acclaim and commercial success with 80% television ratings, became a significant part of 1980s Chilean popular culture.Directed by Óscar Rodríguez and comprising a total of 75 episodes, the series has been consistently ranked by Latin American media as one of the greatest television screenplay in Spanish language of all time, and has been remade several times by other television networks. La Madrastra has been cited as a key influence on Chilean television productions inspiring screenwriters until now. International versions has been adapted and rebranded as Vivir un poco (1985), Para toda la vida (1996), Forever (1996), La Madrastra (2005), ¿Quién mató a Patricia Soler? (2014) and the most recent La madrastra (2022).