Mastromarino
PAYBACK: Barbra Mastromarino’s husband, Michael, an oral surgeon, made headlines in 2006 for stealing organs from corpses. (
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If your husband does something really bad, you have two chances at revenge: wear something low cut to the opening day of his trial and get a hot actress to play you in the Lifetime movie.
The popular made-for-TV movies the women’s channel has been making for 30 years are about to become a reality show — and not a minute too soon.
“My Life Is a Lifetime Movie” features “can’t make this stuff up” stories of victimhood and survival recounted by the real-life women who lived them.
“I think the title is very apropos,” says Ana Margarita Martinez, whose tale of deception and espionage is featured in next month’s premiere.
“I always said my life is a soap opera,” she tells The Post. “Never a dull moment.”
Martinez thought she had finally found true love with fellow Cuban defector Juan Pablo Roque.
But less than a year after their fairy-tale wedding, the mother of two discovered that her Senor Right was actually a spy working for Fidel Castro — and she was an unwitting extra in his elaborate sham.
“We are certainly being very respectful of the participants and their stories,” says Lifetime’s head of programming, Rob Sharenow. “But the show definitely has a fun tone to it. We are winking at the brand a little bit.”
Lifetime original movies — with unforgettable titles like “Mother, May I Sleep With Danger,” “She Fought Alone” and “A Killer Among Friends” — have become a staple of basic cable.
“Generally, they are stories that tap into core human emotion and really extreme situations that are really, really appealing to people,” Sharenow tells The Post.
“There is often a salacious underbelly that is fascinating, but, at the heart of it, these are human stories about drama and conflict and all these things that make for good television.”
The episodes are based on true stories including:
* Jodi Barrus, happily married and teaching high-school history in small-town Indiana — until an obsessed student falsely accused her of sexual misconduct.
* 16-year-old Allyson Pereira of Hamburg, NJ, sent a topless photo of herself to an ex-boyfriend, hoping they would get back together. The next day, the picture went viral.
* Angela Hauser, living a picture-perfect life in Bonne Terre, Mo. — until neighbor Tina Vasquez tried to poison her in an attempt to steal her husband.
“Part of the springboard for the whole series is that people really do use the expression, “My life is like a Lifetime movie,’ ” Sharenow says. “That is part of the magic.”
The concept for the show was born in a cocktail party conversation between A&E Network president Nancy Dubuc and creator-producer Liz Gateley (“Teen Mom,” “The Hills”).
The biggest challenge, Sharenow says, was selecting which of the women’s over-the-top stories to include.
Barbra Mastromarino of Fort Lee, NJ, made the short list.
In 2006, her oral-surgeon husband was convicted of stealing bones, organs and tissues from more than 1,000 corpses and reselling them to medical research companies.
“He is a classic, textbook sociopath,” says Mastromarino. “He lied to me for our entire relationship. Telling my story is almost a way of saying ‘You can go through the worst of times and things can still be OK.’ ”