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Carmen Miranda
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Carmen Miranda had been God gifted with a lovely voice from a very early age. She wanted to pursue a career in show business but had to keep her dreams secret as her Catholic parents disapproved them. She used to sing at several parties and festivals around her town just for fun. Carmen started working at a tie shop at the age of 14 for treatment of her sister Olinda, who had contracted tuberculosis. She later started her own business of making hats, which turned out be quite successful.
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Carmen Miranda was born Maria do Carmo Miranda da Cunha on February 9, 1909 in the north of Portugal in a small town called Marco de Canaveses. Not long after her birth, Carmen's family moved to Brazil where her father was involved in the produce business. The family settled in the capital city of Rio de Janeiro.
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When Carmen Miranda sang in the '40s, "How would you like to spend the weekend in Havana...," it was easy to fly to the Caribbean isle. Now it's a much more arduous process that depends on U.S. State Department approval for American citizens. But last year the Los Angeles-based guitarist and producer Ry Cooder undertook the rigors and went with Nick Gold of World Circuit Records in England to record in Cuba. For Cooder, who won a Grammy Award in 1994 for his album Talking Timbuktu with guitarist Ali Farka Toure, it was another musical stone unturned. Having briefly visited the island in the late '70s, he knew the hidden musical wealth but found it "too hard to get to." Once the ball started rolling, the key to catalyzing the project was Juan de Marcos González, who served as arranger and organizer In Cuba, tracking down Cooder's wish list of Cuban musicians.
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From All Movie Guide: Moviedom's "Brazilian Bombshell" was actually born in Portugal, but as a child Carmen Miranda moved with her large and prosperous family to Rio de Janeiro. That she became a popular musical comedy star is all the more remarkable when one realizes that Miranda was born with deformed feet and had to wear special "lifts" for her performances. Miranda was a well-established and much beloved Brazilian radio, stage, and film personality when, at age 30, she was brought to America by the Schubert Brothers to appear in the 1939 Broadway revue The Streets of Paris (which ... served as the "legit" debut of former burlesque comics Abbott and Costello). She was signed to a long-term 20th Century-Fox contract in 1940, which proved a wise move when World War II dried up the European movie market, leaving South America as practically the only foreign outlet for Hollywood films. A flamboyant exponent of the "good neighbor" policy, Miranda sang and danced her way through a series of garish Fox musicals, the most outrageous of which was The Gang's All Here (1943), in which she sang "The Lady in the Tutti Frutti Hat" while adorned with a seemingly gargantuan piece of fruit-laden headgear. When the demand for South-of-the-Border musicals petered out during the postwar era, Miranda began limiting her screen performances, spending more of her professional time with successful nightclub engagements.
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Carmen Miranda was born in the small northern Portuguese town of Marco de Canaveses to Portuguese parents. She was the second daughter of José Maria Pinto Cunha (1887 - 1938) and Maria Emília Miranda (1886 - 1971). Shortly after her birth, her father, José Maria, emigrated to Brazil and settled in Rio de Janeiro (the then capital), where he opened a barber's shop. In 1910, her mother followed, together with her eldest daughter, Olinda, and Carmen. Carmen never returned to Portugal. Once in Brazil, her parents had further children, namely: Amaro (1911), Cecília (1913), Aurora (1915 - 2005) and Oscar (1916).
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Miranda continued to do personal appearances into the nineteen fifties and during a segment of a Jimmy Durante television show featuring a mambo dance number she had trouble catching her breath. The next morning she was dead of a heart attack at the young age of forty six. Fifty years after her death, younger generations may have difficulty understanding the magnitude of her star power during the nineteen forties, but she was indeed one of the top names in the entertainment field. Luckily for those who enjoyed her performances, and for many others that are curious as to what all the excitement was about, there are a great number of re-issue CDs that are available. There is ... a documentary DVD about the life and times of Carmen Miranda called "Bananas Is My Business" by Helena Solberg, which while far from perfect, still remains a valuable look at the life of this most unique entertainer and personality.
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Carmen Miranda