Amar y vivir is a Colombian TV series produced entirely on location with the mobile unit Producciones RATV, a technical executive production by Ricardo Amézquita under contract signed by both parties (Colombiana de Televisión-Ricardo Amezquita) in 1988. The original story is by Germán Escallón with scripts by Carlos Duplat. It starred María Fernanda Martínez and Luis Eduardo Motoa, accompanied in the cast by Irma Cristancho, Horacio Tavera, Iván Rodríguez, Waldo Urrego, Sigifredo Vega, Juan Carlos Arango and Jaime Santos. It was the most awarded telenovela in the 1980's in Colombia and its success inspired a film of the same name also directed by Carlos Duplat.

The story of a love always faced with adversity. Irene Romero is a humble young woman with an alcoholic father (Mateo, played by Iván Rodríguez, and Helios Fernández in the film version) and a rude mother (played by Lucy Martinez) who sells fruit in a marketplace and dreams of singing. Joaquín Herrera is an intelligent and enterprising man who has just returned from military service, has lost his family's land to a gamonal and comes to the capital in search of fortune and his sister Francisca.

Both seem to be made for each other and unite their lives but Joaquin's ambition takes him to the random world of crime: first working in a workshop where his skill in handling stolen cars earns him the friendship of Luis, El Chacho and the enmity of Luis Etilio Cuellar.

This causes Irene to leave him, taking the fruit of her love with her.

Irene advances a successful career as a singer, while Joaquín's life is increasingly rich and dangerous, always on the edge of the final abyss.

Like other productions of Colombiana de Televisión, Amar y vivir scrutinized the problems of a sector of the marginalized population that fits any Latin American country, within the universal language of dreams, fantasies and the anguish of everyday life. The profound human and social content made this series an unprecedented success in the history of Colombian television.

The story, broadcasted between August 1988 and December 1989, on Fridays from 8:30 to 9:30 PM on Channel One, caught the audience from beginning to end despite the programmer's initial doubts.

In 1989, the scenes of a chapter showing a car bombing were censored, since in real life, the same thing was happening in the midst of the war between the government and Pablo Escobar. Its popularity was such that in 1990 a film was shot that condensed the plot, changing the ending to a happy one and in which a great part of the original cast was kept with a few exceptions.

In 1996, Colombiana de Televisión premièred the second version of this story, entitled "HECHiZO", starring Catherine Siachoque and Ricardo Velez.

The plot followed the hardships of a humble but artistic woman and a man dedicated to searching for his missing sister.

This second version included a more esoteric and less violent atmosphere than the original.

Finally in 2019, Fox Telecolombia produced a third updated version of this story for Caracol Televisión, this time starring Ana María Estupiñán as Irene and Carlos Torres as Joaquín, under the direction of Liliana Bocanegra.