Rafael Urrieta Montenegro is the main villainous (later anti-heroic) protagonist of the 2011 Colombian telenovela Flor Salvaje.
He was portrayed by Tony Dalton, who also plays Lalo Salamanca in Better Call Saul and Gastón Diestro in Rebelde.
Biography[]
Past[]
With an unknown past, Urrieta was an average man who married a woman belonging to an important family, Catalina Larrazabal. However, it is later revealed that this family was dedicated to belittling and humiliating him, which would begin his descent into villainy and corruption.
Some time later, Urrieta discovered oil on the lands of his wife Catalina, and would begin to get more and more money and power, and would become the leader of an oil company along with his friend Peter Nash, and opened his first business, the Bar las 4 P, where he would meet Zahra, who would become his lover, thus deceiving his wife Catalina.
Due to his affair with Zahra, she would end up pregnant. However, since Zahra was a prostitute, Urrieta was certain that the child was not his, so he sent her to get an abortion. However, he did not count on the fact that Zahra did not choose to kill the baby and give birth to it, which would have serious consequences for the future.
Flor Salvaje[]
Due to the success of the 4 P bar, Urrieta frequented the place quite a bit and began having sexual relations, almost always, with the bar's prostitutes. This led to his wife Catalina also cheating on him with Alirio, a close friend of Urrieta's. This unleashed his fury, and he killed her lover and began torturing her for it, mutilating Alirio's corpse and locking her in a basement. Urrieta paid little or nothing for his crimes, since he had as an ally and great friend the civil boss, Mariano Guerrero, who covered up his crimes.
Everything changed when the protagonist, Flor Salvaje (Wildflower), arrived in Nueva Esperanza. She was a poor girl looking for work, even if it was as a prostitute, to support her sisters. Although Urrieta didn't pay much attention to her at first, he later proclaimed her his exclusive wife. Meanwhile, Urrieta had two love rivals for her, Sacramento Iglesias and Pablo Aguilar, who also had feelings for her. Behind Urrieta's back, Pablo kept a secret relationship with Flor Salvaje for a long time, which led him to kidnap them both and murder Pablo in front of Flor Salvaje. This made Flor realize that Urrieta was a great danger to her, forcing her to run away with Sacramento, marrying him and taking her sisters far away to protect them. In the midst of all this, Rafael fell out with Mariano because Urrieta turned the governor against him, which furthered Mariano's goal of imprisoning Urrieta for the slightest crime that would make him look suspicious. However, Urrieta was very calculating and meticulous in his crimes, which made it difficult to obtain evidence against him.
Catalina also took more freedom and in her hellish marriage with Urrieta, both tried to kill each other, which led Urrieta to be in the hospital twice, and in one of the accidents perpetrated by Urrieta ends up killing Raimundo Rojas, an important man who turned out to be the father of Sacramento, who now would be called Sacramento Rojas and not "Iglesias". Urrieta ends up destroying the marriage of Flor Salvaje and Sacramento, which led Flor, in an act of protecting her sisters and Sacramento, to approach Urrieta with the aim of taking revenge on him by pretending that she would be his exclusive wife again.
Thanks to Sacramento's rise in power due to being a Rojas, he would try to get revenge on Urrieta by all possible means for having destroyed his marriage, trying to seize the oil lands, however, because their multiple fights lead to even third parties losing their lives, both reach an agreement to divide the Lands and the profits, but everything would explode again when in a game, Sacramento takes Flor Salvaje one night. The next day she is kidnapped and beaten, and it is Urrieta who rescues her, where his genuine redemption would begin due to his affection for Flor. Finally, Urrieta decides to take her to Pablo Aguilar's secret grave, and is arrested by Mariano and his men for the murder, although not in the way Flor wanted, but rather Urrieta, arguing that he and his trusted man, Rufino, always knew, but Urrieta decided to surrender voluntarily.
While Urrieta was in prison, a mysterious young multimillionaire, Abel Torres, arrives in Nueva Esperanza. He harbors a deep hatred and resentment toward Urrieta and sets out to torment him while Urrieta is incarcerated, such as framing him for the murder of Francisco Losada, Zahra's new lover, sending a man to beat him in his cell, and giving a gun to Lucía Aguilar, wife of the deceased Pablo Aguilar, to kill him. However, Urrieta survives and is taken to the hospital. While he is hospitalized, it is discovered that the body found was not Pablo Aguilar's (thanks to Rufino), so Urrieta is free again. Taking advantage of his freedom thanks to Rufino's loyalty, Urrieta decides to ally with his old enemy, Sacramento, to stop Abel and uncover his plans and thus save Nueva Esperanza, since Torres is also involved in drug trafficking. Urrieta gets a big shock when Abel reveals that he is his and Zahra's son, who is eager for revenge for ordering Zahra to have an abortion, since if it weren't for her, Abel wouldn't exist. This leads Urrieta to great doubt in his fight against Abel, since Urrieta always wanted to have a child and sometimes tries to give in to Zahra's demands that Abel is "sick" due to his tragic history, however, due to Abel's atrocious crimes such as drug trafficking, kidnappings, and land theft, do not make Urrieta feel sorry for him and decides that he must be stopped.
Mariano, who has gotten into serious trouble with drug traffickers and also had an alliance with Abel, asks Urrieta for help and he, along with Sacramento and the police, decide to ambush Abel because he had kidnapped Enrique Losada (a journalist) and Alicia (a prostitute from the Bar las 4P) everything ends up being a success, which forces Abel to allegedly flee the country, and Mariano is imprisoned due to his past crimes, despite having dismantled the Drug Cartel.
Rafael is forgiven by Flor and they decide to get married. However, Abel interrupts the wedding by kidnapping Wildflower's sisters and Zahra, and demands that Urrieta and Flor exchange their wives for them. At the port, Abel decides to take Flor to sell her as a prostitute and kill Urrieta by shooting him. However, Urrieta survives the shot and manages to save Flor on the plane taking off. Unfortunately, as Abel sees it, he, in an act of suicide, shoots the pilot and both crash, killing Abel and Urrieta.
At the end of the soap opera, 10 years later, it is seen that Wildflower had a son by Urrieta and had a successful life, always remembering Urrieta as a great redeemed man and a hero.
Victims[]
Some of Urrieta's most important victims have been the following:
- Alirio: In episode 1, when Urrieta discovers that Alirio was cheating on him with his wife, Catalina, he kills him by throwing him into an oil well and then dismembers his corpse and places it in a box. However, the corpse would be recovered by Sacramento, Urrieta's former archenemy.
- Pablo Aguilar: In episode 46, Urrieta kidnaps and kills Pablo in front of Flor, for the same case as Alirio, Pablo, who was Urrieta's trusted right-hand man, had fallen in love with Flor and they maintained a secret relationship behind Urrieta's back. In episode 110, as redemption, Urrieta takes Flor to where he buried him as proof of his trust and is taken to jail for the crime, however, in episode 125 he is released because it is revealed that the buried body was not Pablo's, since Rufino, his trusted man, had changed it for that of a man who had no family, so Urrieta was acquitted.
- Barba Roja (Redbeard in English): In episode 63, Urrieta kidnaps and tortures a former confidant of his, Redbeard, because he helped Catalina in her attempts to kill Urrieta. Urrieta deceives him by telling that he has to cut off his own hand since he puts a small bomb on it as a bracelet, which doesn't explode. Wounded, Urrieta and Rufino now kill him and throw his body into a lake full of piranhas, so that it will never be found.
- Catalina: His non-mortal victim. It's a recurring theme in the series, with Catalina and Urrieta trying to kill each other, but neither succeeded. Urrieta's attempts have included strangling her, putting a snake in her bed, and injuring the horseshoe of one of her horses to send it into a spin, although his attempts have all failed except for the horse, where there was an indirect victim, Raimundo Rojas. Catalina's attempts to kill Rafael took place in episodes 39 and 58. In episode 39, she shot Rafael in the chest with a 9mm, and in episode 58, with the help of Barba Roja, they cut the brakes on Urrieta's truck, causing it to crash. Surprisingly, Rafael survived both attempts, although he spent a long time in the hospital in both cases, in the brink of death.
- Raimundo Rojas: Indirect victim. In episode 64, during Urrieta's attempt to kill Catalina by injuring Catalina's horse so that it would run wild when Catalina rode it, Raimundo tried to help her. However, the horse seriously injures Raimundo and he was taken to José María Rojas' (his son) for medical treatment. However, he eventually succumbed to his injuries. It is worth mentioning that he is considered a victim of Urrieta, since although his attempt was to kill Catalina, it was Raimundo who ended up dying in his attempt to save her from Urrieta's attack.
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
TBA
External Links[]
- Rafael Urrieta on the Heroes Wiki